fLJBPtARY OF congress' 

# ^~Wr^ ■# 

1 1''"? |wi3M|o f 

# tL _'_3^ # 

I UNITED STATES~OfTmERICA. ^ 



HOURS 



WITH JOHN DARBY. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF 

'•THINKERS AND THINKING," "ODD HOURS OF A PHYSICIAN,' 
ETC., ETC. y 



These things my heart, O Pyrrho, longs to hear, 
How you enjoy such ease of hfe and quiet, 
The only man as happy as a god." 



A man is not to bite his hand and afterwards blame his 



teeth for the hurt." 



PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO 
1877. 







Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 

JAMES E. GARRETSON, M.D., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



MRS. THOMAS WOOD, 



THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 



BY ITS AUTHOR, 



WITH EXPRESSIONS OF REGARD AND ESTEEM. 



ARGUMENT. 



Lysias, a youth of refinement and education, has, as confidant ^ 
and adviser, an old friend, John Darby. The younger being at 
that stage from which one steps into the great arena, it is the 
concern of the elder to endow him with experiences which have 
grovi^n out of the successes and failures occurring in his own life. 
The talks held by the two as they stroll together through the 
woods, float in their boat upon the stream, or sit by the evening ^ 
fireside, relate to these experiences. 

The subject of women being frequently introduced, much dis- 
course is held on the meaning of the passion of love : it is shown 
to be a bitter-sweet, — a something which, of all the associations 
of earth, comprises the most or contains the least. Home is dis- 
cussed ; what it is ; what makes it ; what keeps it ; what is to go 
before it ; who may come into possession of it, and who may not. 

Earnestly anxious for the good of his young friend, the old man 
propounds aphorisms and abounds in suggestions. There is a 
good deal of indulgence in philosophic reflections, but it is aimed 
to divest this of any appearance of pedantry, and to apply the 
lessons to the every-day details of life and living. 

It is endeavored to be impressed that success arises out of 
knowing and heeding; that biters get bitten; that wisdom is, 
of all things, the most useful, and prudence the most profitable; 
that good and evil are not to be looked on as things in them- 
selves, but as things existing alone in relations ; that while man 
is to recognize that he is indebted to God for ail blessings, yet 
tne meaning of Providence is to be understood as lying strictly 

I* V 



vi ARGUMENT, 

within one's self; that one is to lean on his own staff. It is 
denied that there is such a thing in the world as dealh. 

Here and there — confined, however, principally to the first few 
conversations — references, more or less foreign to the matter of 
immediate discourse, are to be found interpolated, and soliloquies 
are indulged in, which, on first impression, expose the mentor to 
criticism on the scores of disjointed speaking and literary incon- 
gruity; but on looking at the matter with ordinary closeness, a 
warrant for this is seen to lie in the object, which is to drop seeds 
of thought (wherever a place may be found in which to plant 
one) rather than point morals. 

Finally, there is considered that mutation which, sooner or 
later, breaks up all families. Husband and wife are separated ; 
the mentor offers to his pupil the consolations of philosophy, and 
demonstrates to him that the change from a bridal chamber to a 
coffin is of precisely similar import to the burial of the caterpillar 
in its cocoon ; that coffins and cocoons are alike symbols of im- 
mortality, that from either come beautiful flying things. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Concerning a Wife 5 

Concerning Things to be Known 34 

Concerning Quiet Hours 56 

Concerning the Avoidance of Unquiet Hours . . 73 
Concerning That Which it Most Profits a Man to 

Understand 102 

Concerning Heroic Love 126 

Concerning Heroic Love 134 

Concerning Nuptial Love 142 

The Story of Lysander 151 

About Nooses 169 

Lysias 170 

At Home 184 

At Home 199 

At Home 218 

At Home 226 

Death in the House 241 



I. 

CONCERNING A WIFE. 

A WIFE, thou sayest. 
And what for, my Lysias ? 

Thou wouldst hear discourse thereon. 

And so thou shalt ; for of all matters concerning 
which experience may speak to the edifying of inex- 
perience ; of things which pertain most to comfort or 
discomfort ; of relations which affiliate or which antag- 
onize; of joys which expand or which sodden ; nothing 
— of all the associations of earth — is there, which may 
comprise so much, or contain so little, as is embraced 
in the meaning of that one word — Wife. 

A wife commences in dreams ; not of flesh and blood, 
but a divine phantom is that which flits about and which 
touches the young heart — the phantom is it of the rose 
— of the zephyr sighing for a something it wants — the 
phantom of the blushing cheek, of tell-tale lips, ripe, 
and pouting complaints of the unsipped lusciousness 
living in them. No face is seen by Youth as it is in 
reality. Over all, over everything, is the sheen. The 
1* S 



e CONCERNING A WIFE. 

breath of Love is ever that perfume which to the lover 
is sweetest. The glance of a love-lit eye, comes it from 
blue, black, or gray, is as the glory which falls at mo- 
ments on mountain-tops, making bleak rocks golden. 
Look where Youth will, there is the divine thing — 
there is the sheen ; each wavelet reflects it, each haze- 
wrapped cloudlet bears it ; the earth, the sky, the waters, 
are full of it ; brooks sing its song, winds are its wings ; 
even seas, which engulf and destroy, are seen as tribute- 
bearers to its heroism. Oh, thing divine — thing divine ! 

And poetry is a tribute-bearer \ for who, save in 

rounded periods, and in the languid diminuendoes of 
scales, and of well-matched words, may find language 
fit for the telling of dreams apart from which there is 
nothing? — Ah! beautiful world of Love! the senses 
drunken, the appetite taking to its nourishment only 
the lotus — Eden. 

Only the rustle of a robe — her robe ! Yet is a 

heart set palpitating, and speech, a moment back loud 
and vaunting, is now become confused and faltering • 
shades red and pale fly at random, and limbs strong 
and lusty have fallen into weakness. 

The whisper of a bride — a word so low spoken 

that but one ear in all the wide world may catch the 
meaning. Yet is there music in the tone apart from 
which harmony has no chords but have become un- 
strung and tuneless; other sounds concern not, but are 
as things dead or meaningless. The black humors of 
life have been dispelled by that whisper — earth has 
drawn somewhat nearer heaven. 

A wife, thou sayest. 

There are, my Lysias, women who are such fools and 



CONCERNING A WIFE. 7 

idiots, that by some unwonted blunder on the part of 
nature they would seem to have grown into life naught 
else than animated blocks. . . . Yet — yet, on the other 
hand, are there a multitude so exquisite, so finely 
attuned, so over-full of the delicious, so enticing, so 
alluring, so all-satisfying, that kings and philosophers 
who bow down before them, who give crown and brains 
to them, who forget in their praise all other worship, who 
build altars to them, who live all of life in their pres- 
ence and who die all of death in their absence — ah ! my 
scholar, he alone that knew not Servilla blames Caesar. 
A woman, Lysias, may be as the burr and thistle, 
which, a moment back, thou wouldst have lifted from 
the wayside had I not warned thee. She may be of a 
nature to hold fast by a husband, but the closer she 
sticks the more shall she worry and wound him. A 
woman, on the contrary, may be like unto a bath redo- 
lent of perfumes, not only purifying and cleansing him 
who comes to her freshness, but so recreating his senses, 
so stimulating with a modestly-tempered coolness, so 
exhilarating, and so intoxicating with the sweet things 
which live in her, that well may the lover let go under 
mouth and nostrils, deeming it happiness enough that 
such waters may drown and forever keep him. Ah, 
Lysias, but that the lover might so drown himself, and 
stay drowned ! Say we thus ? Let us not arrive at 
conclusions that are unwise. What is the peace of Age 
to the passion of Youth? What are cool bowers to 
heated furnaces? Tell us, Sophocles. How do you 
feel about Love ? And what answers the Boet ? " Hush, 
if you please : to my great delight, I have escaped 
from it, and feel as if I had escaped frpni a frantic and 



8 CONCERNING A WIFE. 

savage master." And what adds Cephalus? ''Soph- 
ocles," he says, ''speaks well, for unquestionably, when 
the appetites have abated, and their force is diminished, 
then is age; and age brings us profound repose and 
freedom." 

And who is that wise man who has persisted in 

defining Beauty as summer fruits, which are easy to cor- 
rupt and cannot last — which makes Youth dissolute and 
puts old men out of countenance — yet who, likewise 
must add, " that if it light well, it maketh virtue shine 
and vices blush" ?* 

But beauty in woman is not so much of face and of 
form as of motive and action. She is wise who makes 
herself to look well, but she is wiser who acts well. It 
is ill advised in a woman to go without adornments, 
for dress is to a woman what feathers are to the bird, and 
that bird which bears brightest plumage affords most 
pleasure by the beauty it carries. But a bird brought 
to the cage tires quickly enough if feathers alone are 
the charm ; there should be voice, and movement, and 
winsome ways, and these, rather than the coloring, are 
what should be the attractions ; for a winsome woman 
does so delight her husband that never does it come to 
him to see that little by little the plumage is changing 
— as change it must that it may keep in accord with 
advancing years. 

It is to be commended that a wife be able to oppose 
Latin with French, metaphysics with witty apothegms, 
melancholy with sprightliness, complainings with music, 
— and that she spend gracefully and appropriately what 
the husband shall earn manfully and sufficiently. 

* Lord Bacon. 



CONCERNING A WIFE. g 

A wife is not over-wisely made too much into a toy 
and a plaything, but heaven alone may preserve the no- 
bility of that man who makes of her over-much a part- 
ner and helpmate. It is not in physics that a woman 
toil, it is not in metaphysics that a man sacrifice fine 
metal to mean purpose. Let pots be made of brass, but 
that which is to lift to the nostrils the fragrant bouquet, 
let it be coined from gold. 

By which is meant, that the education and the 

habits of a wife should so diifer from the pursuits of the 
husband, that, as she finds in his strength and solidity 
that in which she is, and should be, lacking, so, in com- 
pensation, the charms, the sprightliness, the sweet 
witcheries of life are to be found most abundantly in 
her. — A natural law is it, not to be disputed, neither 
argued away; that man is the House-band. — Woman 
would seem to be meant as a charming bow to the band, 
without which a band may be only a dull wrapping held 
by a knot. 

A law of nature is it that a weak thing supports a 
stronger only at the expense of that which is the charm 
and beauty of the fragile. See a tree broken and fallen 
over, being kept from the ground by an intervening 
vine ; the vine is between the tree and the ground, true, 
but how sore pressed it looks — and is! How matted 
and tangled and bruised are the tendrils, how lost are 
the charms of the clinging and the twining! 

A man — a well man — weak, and supported ; and a 
woman strong, and supporting, are among the most 
unnatural of the anomalies of nature, — hermaphrodites 
so universally repulsive that, with a common voice, all 
things cry out against the sorry relation. It is for a 

A* 



lO CONCERNING A WIFE. 

rock to bear up moss ; it is for a wall to hold peach- 
boughs, which, in return, cover the dull face with 
charms that artists pause before and carry away in 
copies. It is for a steeple to lift heavenward the gilded 
delicate vane which is the ornament and finish of the 
pile. But a man — a great, strong man — leaning against 
a weak and delicate woman — faugh ! the stones by the 
wayside might blush. 

Expect a woman to play the parts both of wife and 
man ; expect complacency and soft greetings where 
are encountered only grumblings and hard knocks ; ex- 
pect the pressure of velvet-like hands where scarf-skin 
is thickened and made horny by contact with pans 
and kettles ; expect the breath of roses where are fed 
only onions ; expect a tired, over-worked, man-crushed 
woman to vie with the beauty that surrounds, and then 
to grow into a disgust for her because her face looks 
weary and her limbs deny the graces of the dance — 
faugh ! you poor brute of an apology, rather ask your- 
self if even you are worthy of the hack into which you 
have converted your gazelle. 

By which is not meant that a woman, parasite- 
like, is to take everything, giving back nothing. Gives 
the air nothing to him who fans it ? gives the flower 
nothing to him who tends and waters it? gives the 
grand poem nothing to him who, through weary hours, 
regardless of the toil which is carrying with it the 
color of his cheek, ponders over it, making it his own ? 
It is to be told thee, my Lysias, that a wife gives most 
when, to one dull and unobservant, she may seem to 
be giving least; for is not that which affords to a man 
energy, life, and the desire to do battle with his needs 



CONCERNING A WIFE. H 

and necessities, giving in its fulness? and come not 
such gifts from a beloved one? Who that loves but is 
made eager to place himself between his object and 
that which threatens it ? Who that loves but is made 
strong and manly through his passion ? 

And he who is not thus made strong is not a 

lover, and the bride is to be pitied. Such a man shall 
never come to distinguish between diamond and paste ; 
and when, in marriage, he commences the destruction 
of the beautiful thing which has come to him, he in- 
augurates a crime which his whole future life will show 
to be unpardonable, for his sin will be found to cover 
him with confusion, with penury, and with shame ; or, 
if it be that the vine, in its weak way, shall keep him 
from falling to the earth, then is it that he must find 
even in greater fulness the wretchedness of a position 
which continues on exhibition' his degradation and 
utter unworthiness. 

A secret, my Lysias, I breathe into thy ear : He who 
would possess an angel may himself ?nake o?ie. 

How? thou askest. 

Through praise. — Tell a wife twenty times a day that 
she is an angel ; be surprised that thou seest not wings ; 
and not more surely in the grafting is the quince made 
to bear pears, than shall thy plant be brought to bring 
thee heavenly fruit. 

Praise, do we call it ? scarcely this is it ; give 

title where title belongs ; call her an angel who is one, 
that, being constantly reminded of her high nature, she 
descend not to mean things. 

A wife ! 



12 CONCERNING A WIFE. 

Like unto rings found in the ears of women — see 
these I show thee, Lysias : outside, — paraded to the 
world, — ^jewels; inside, — hoUowness, emptiness, noth- 
ingness. 

An angel may be a fallen one, and women as- 
suredly there are who are not so good as that which 
belongs to their first estate ; shrews, vixens, and pes- 
tilence-breeders, who do create about them an atmos- 
phere so sulphurous, that for breathing purposes one 
may not expect to find worse in the pit itself. — The 
house-top, even on a stormy night, is better than the 
luxurious chamber in which blusters and scolds a vixen. 

Neither is it well for a lover that a wife be found 

too tame, for tameness is insipidity, and insipidity has 
nought of invitation in it ; even the blood-firing Ver- 
zenay is without enticement if it sparkle not. 

Yet let it be well seen to, my scholar, when the wife 
comes to thee, that, careless of thy good, thou lose not 
of thine own fault the sparkle ; for surely is it the case, 
as has been found in the experience of all indifferent 
lovers, that a neglected wife may not of her nature 
retain the bead any more than may neglected wine ; 
and so, women and wine being in such respect alike, 
he is not to complain who, of his own indiscretion, 
loses the one or the other. 

But the vixen, thou sayest, the born vixen, incura- 
ble, unimpressible. 

Pitiable owner of such a monstrosity ! Let her be 
driven to a nunnery, my scholar; and let it be a strong 
place, built of heavy stone ; or, still better, speed her to 
the devil, that thus the more quickly she may get with 
her kind, for strongly does it come to me to believe 



CONCERNING A WIFE. 1 3 

that a vixen is not a real woman, — body and soul, — but 
a wandering fiend, who, going up and down in the 
earth, has dispossessed of its tabernacle some beauteous 
one, and thus plays her part of a she-Mephistopheles. 
I would also add the whisper in thy ear that a wise 
man gets clear of a devil as best he may, and as quickly 
as he can. 

About the angels ? 

Well suggested, Lysias. An angel wife is a posses- 
sion so sweet, so rapturous, so full of all wealth, so 
overflowing with all good, that he is utterly void of 
wisdom who searches not the world over but that he 
find such treasure. Is a man ugly ? in the reflectipn he 
sees himself beautified. Is he an unfortunate ? her con- 
solations enrich him. Is he a castaway? in her passion 
he finds himself lifted up. Ah, my scholar, who but 
the husband may know of a thousand nameless charms, 
charms so potent that all atmospheres, save that which 
surrounds the beloved one, are as dreary fogs and de- 
pressing vapors — are as emptiness when compared with 
fulness ? 

An angel! 

It is, that as lions' whelps are few, so are vixens 
scarce. She that has bitten not, let her not be esteemed 
to have fangs. See the angel of Antheros : tall, not too 
tall ; slender, not too slender; delicate, not too delicate; 
teeth even, and white, and of such symmetry that the 
very light seems to enjoy its constant play among them ; 
forehead low, not too low; hair golden, sun-glimpses 
playing forever at hide-and-seek with two tresses found 
kissing and toying eternally with the alabaster neck ; a 
chin of tender size ; and eyes — eyes, my Lysias, that, 



14 



CONCERNING A WIFE. 



as I have seen them a hundred times, glisten, and glow, 
and grow suffused with rapturous tears as mirth or sen- 
timent comes to them. And then her nature — ah, my 
good scholar, dream thou a dream of a something all 
softness, like unto the dove, like unto melody, like 
unto the zephyrs of summer nights, like unto the beauty 
which poets catch and imprison in their verses, like 
unto the tints which come to artists in moments of in- 
spiration ; and in such a dream imagine, for no words 
may describe, her whose name signifies — but perhaps 
the signification is to Antheros alone. 

And whence come such charms, thou askest. 

Ah, Lysias, thou questionest from not having 
learned the secret of love — find in a single couplet the 
text thou art to understand ; 

" Love flings a halo round the dear one's head, 
Fauhless, immortal, till they change or die ;" 

— for who shall love but that he values, and who value 
but that he takes care? — Takes care. Heed a lesson, 
my Lysias. There be husbands many, very many, 
who so continuously keep themselves begrimed and 
defiled with filthy defects in morals and manners, 
that from their blackness a shadow falls upon all from 
whom they may shut out the sunshine ; and what 
plant, howsoever beautiful, — be it wife or flower, — but 
withers and grows pale if it have for sustenance naught 
but shadow ? May a bloom show itself to night ? is fra- 
grance to be perceived when the winds of the tornado 
bow the rose? A most sensitive flame is that which 
burns in the eye of a wife ; more delicate than the 
velvet of the soft peach is the ripened love which plays 



CONCERNING A WIFE. 1 5 

its mad pranks from pouting lips — it paints the lips, 
it pours nectar over them, it deluges them with per- 
fumes, it breathes from them music of such utterance 
that senses become steeped and lost in Lethe — and yet 
— yet, even as the bloom of the fruit is marred by so 
little a matter as a rude touch, so love may be un- 
settled and put to flight by a vulgar word or an un- 
guarded action. 

Handle a wife, when she come to thee, as a jewel is 
handled ) keep her in soft places, that the gloss be not 
injured ; hold her at length of arm, that the gleam may 
enter thy heart \ wear her upon thy bosom, that thereby 
thou shalt thyself be made beautiful ; gloat over thy 
possession in secret, because that a something so price- 
less belongs to thee. 

Men I have seen, my scholar, who use wives as coals 
are used — burn them for purposes of heat, for purposes 
of cookery — burn all the life out of them ; and even 
at last, when the hearth-place holds alone dead ashes, 
these are economized that paths may be made for base 
feet to walk over wet places dry-shod. 

And what is to come from burned coals but 

ashes? and from scattered embers what but a dead 
pathway? — a pathway that leads never to possessions 
in Spain ! 

Possessions in Spain ! Woods and running streams, 
castles, firesides, and a charming " Prue" for the arm- 
chair lacking an occupant — never to lead to these. 

A dreamer dreaming dreams of home joys — joys 
which are or which are not to be his. Ah ! pleasing, 
yet too often seductive stories read in the pages of a 
glowing grate; some story of quiet loving days and 



1 6 CONCERNING A WIFE. 

peaceful nights, some other one of a Lizzie or Mary or 
Letitia who is to make from a small income plenty- 
through frugality and management. A cottage led to 
by a lane arbored with apple-blossoms ; the soothing 
murmur of some streamlet which all night is to sing its 
song as it runs among the rocks at the foot of a garden ; 
window-curtains formed of fragrant jasmine whose roots 
keep themselves warm in winter by living beneath a 
quaint porch ; some story of a love all our own, a story 
of dreams dreamed together — of daffodils and violets 
in spring-time — a story of a glowing hearth burning 
brighter and brighter through many, many winters, to 
go out only in the dark December of a life-year so 
distant, so very distant, that we trouble ourself nothing 
at all about it. 

No Titbottom's spectacles.* 

Angels, nymphs, or at least women, — ah ! those truth- 
telling spectacles ; not even women, but only broom- 
sticks, mops, or kettles hurrying about, rattling and 
tinkling in a state of shrill activity. Good Easy-Chair, 
is it that SHE, the statue of perfect form, of flowing 
movements, was found by thee no warmer or softer than 
marble — than ice? And it was true sadness, was it, to 
find that so many, being without spectacles, '* thought 
the iron rod to be flexible, and the ice statue warm ; to 
see so many a gallant heart, which seemed brave and 
loyal as the crusaders, pursuing through days and 
nights, and a long life of devotion, the hope of light- 
ing at least a smile in the cold eyes, if not a fire in the 
icy heart — to see the earnest, enthusiastic sacrifice, the 

* Prue and I. — Curtis. 



CONCERNING A WIFE. 1 7 

pure resolve, the generous faith, the fine scorn of doubt, 
the impatience of suspicion, to watch the grace, the 
ardor, the glory of devotion, to see the noblest heart 
renouncing all other hope, all other ambition, all other 
life, than the possible love of some one of these statues" 
— terrible, was it, *' that they had no heart to give, the 
face polished and smooth because there was no sorrow in 
the heart, — and drearily, often, no heart to be touched"? 

Who shall be found able to bear the disappoint- 
ment of a broken dream? glowing, blazing, life-giving 
coals all come to ashes; the elegant '* Aurelia," who has 
given the enjoyment " of the gloss of silk, the delicacy 
of lace, the glitter of jewels," found to be only **a 
peacock's feather, flounced, and furbelowed, and flut- 
tering;" or **an iron rod, thin, sharp, and hard;" the 
*' movement of the drapery" by no possibility to be 
mistaken '' for any flexibility of the thing draped." 

A wife, and a fireside. 

An easy-chair opposite your own, and a little 

foot that poises its pretty self on the head of the 
fire-dog. And she who sits in the easy-chair yours for 
life, yours for better or for worse, — for weal or for woe. 
You talk to her about your dreams, your aspirations, 
your prospects. Will she deny herself affluence that you 
may pursue your work? Will she grow philosophical 
with you and smile at the giddy passers running their 
useless chases after will-o'-the-wisps? Will she hum 
sweet tunes which you shall weave into words for the 
clothing and the ornamenting of your thoughts? — Or, 
will the foot beat a testy tattoo? Will the voice hum 
no inspiring airs, but the rather rain into your ears 
such showers of complaint and repining and querulous 
2* 



1 8 CONCERNING A WIFE. 

worryings that naught shall remain but to fly hope and 
dreams and love, all in a run that shall carry you far, 
away far from your land of promise out into a sea which 
you had trusted never to sail upon ? 

A terrible mistake indeed is that which discovers not 
in the stolen robes the imposture of the wolf; truly 
shall it be found that a wolf snarls and growls and eats 
away a man's heart — what may one do but give up, 
save that he fight, fight on, fight forever — a hopeless 
battle ? 

Or, a wife may be without mind of her own, 

unstable as water is changeable; the waif of circum- 
stances ; admiring a husband where others praise him ; 
doubting and indifferent where others find fault — never 
constant either for good or for evil. It is a life of un- 
rest indeed that a man leads with himself, when only a 
thing so frail has he to comfort him. 

Antheros is a censor of books, and a most variable 
one, sending at times shafts which bring great drops 
from the weary, hopeless hearts of unsuccessful authors 
— pouring at other times balm and praise which gloss 
over and conceal a multitude of faults. A critic of 
much judgment is Antheros pronounced to be ; yet a 
pity is it that he who has his book condemned should 
not have consolation in knowing that the tenor of what 
is said comes not truly from the brain of the fault-finder, 
but rather from the fingers of her who sits at the piano 
in the room which adjoins the library. A truth it is, 
that the critic catches and imprisons in his lines the 
harmony of a melody which at times entrances and 
enraptures, and which might well convert wormwood 
itself into honey ; and so it comes that even he who 



CONCERNING A WIFE. 



19 



has written ill may find himself praised because of the 
caught melody which unconsciously Antheros has im- 
prisoned in what he indites under the delicious inspi- 
ration. So again it may happen that the fingers shall 
strike the notes with less emotion, or the song may 
be melancholy. And now, though thought was found 
ocean deep, or strain Homeric, yet has Antheros no 
emotion, no sprightliness, no kind word ; nothing but 
carping, scathing condemnation. — Yet it is not An- 
theros who condemns, but the unconscious fingers in 
the drawing-room. 

All notes may not be glad notes, all songs may 

not be sprightly songs ; fingers at times will become 
weary, as, alas ! in time they must lose their cunning 
and grow cold and pulseless. A sad knowledge is it 
that she who occupies the other easy-chair — be she as 
the bride of Antheros — must some time or other be 
parted from, — she will go, — go away, never to come 
back, — and all that shall be left behind will be the 
memory of a harmony that was. Ah ! how then will 
be longed for the broken notes, — alas ! melancholy in 
truth will it then be. — No dainty foot to tease the fire- 
dog ; no ear into which to pour stories not to find a 
listener elsewhere, — the bright fire, ashes indeed, and 
nothing left wherewith to renew the glow : desire itself 
buried in the coffin upon which rest heavy earth-clods. 

A coffin. 

A coffin, and a wife. 

Bring now to your support that philosophy which is 
to buoy over a thousand trials — alas ! what a bundle of 
weak reeds ! how one and all bend and break under 
the weight you rest upon them ! Shall the philosopher 



20 CONCERNING A WIFE. 

philosophize, and a dead wife — his wife — lying cold, 
and stark, and pulseless, in her grave ? — Never, alas ! 
never, unless indeed it be that his own heart is also 
dead and buried ; resting in a common grave with the 
other. — It is to philosophize when die other men's 
wives, — and when are buried other men's hopes. 

A flat denial, thou sayest, of all that a philosopher 
should affirm, and for what he should contend. 

Another whisper in thy ear, my scholar ! With the 
memories of divine strains poured even into my own 
soul by the poetry-compelling fingers of the wife of 
Antheros, there has passed before my eyes the vision 
of a coffin, and in it a pale cold face, which has brought 
ice to my heart, and which does so environ me with a 
sense of the nothingness that may come, — that may 
some time come, — alas ! that will come, either to hus- 
band or to wife, — that senses grow dull, and even 
imagination, cowering, thinks not where else consola- 
tion exists, if it be not like unto the fraction of warmth 
found sometimes among ashes even when the glow of 
the coals has long departed. 

***** Let us pause, Lysias, that, stretching our- 
selves full length in these easy-chairs which so bounti- 
fully give comfortable support to us, we may look into 
the full grate wherein the coals are as glowing, thank 
God, as ever it has been our lot to behold them, and 
while, without, rages a winter's storm, and fitfully and 
threateningly the cold rain dashes against the window- 
panes, — yet, — more thanks to God, — no coffin has, as 
yet, crossed the office-door by which run the steps pass- 
ing to the chamber, — to her chamber, — never has there 
been lack of coals wherewith to keep the grate aglow, 



CONCERNING A WIFE. 21 

— there are yet no memories laden with sadness. — Let 
us dream on,* my scholar; for us there is in the world 
neither death nor regret. 

A wife. 

Think, Lysias, that the cozy office wherein we sit is 
all thine own. Now will it take little imagination that 
thy dull teacher shall be made to vanish, and that his 
place be occupied by one whose eyes are dreams them- 
selves, — sweet dreams, soft dreams, dreams in which are 
to be felt the tinklings of heart-music ; dreams so full 
of light, and heat, and flame, that the grate falls poor 
and dull in the comparison. The foot on the head 
of the fire-dog is not thine own foot, yet it belongs 
to thee, — and what a pretty, dainty foot it is ! it is not 
the skill of the maker, but the rich arch of the instep, 
the delicate contour of the ankle, which renders the 
gaiter, with its strapped lacings, the jauntiest thing 
thou hast ever beheld ; and with \yhat a grace falls 
the hem of the velvet skirt about the base of the fender ! 
— look not up too hastily, for a pair of lips which are 
as blooming carnations are pouting at the passivity 
which keeps the easy-chairs so far apart. Ah, Lysias, 
thou dog, thou enviable dog, push close, deny not the 
arm which longs to steal around the tempting neck, 
— kiss the blushes from the lips. — Ah ! youth ; beauti- 
ful youth. Who, if he were not a philosopher, but 
would be Lysias ? 

But the vision is gone. Back in the easy-chair is the 
Mentor. A wife, a real wife, is not, however, a vision, 
— may not be treated as a vision ; even easy-chairs re- 
quire the attention of the upholsterer, and glowing 



22 CONCERNING A WIFE. 

grates may not be kept blazing from the mines even of 
the most fervent imagination. Alas that it is the case 
that coal-seams alone produce coals, and that from such 
dreary places as yards fenced off in back streets it is 
that the grate must be supplied ! 

And a grate having no fresh coals with which to 

replace dying embers becomes as cheerless as when, 
full and blazing, it is cheerful : also it comes to be 
seen that the divine '^Aurelia" is mortal, for she 
too can change from cheerful to cheerless, and thus, a 
glowing grate fireless, the easy-chairs, having no longer 
a common point of attraction, become repellant of 
each other, and little by little get farther and farther 
separated. 

Even so vulgar a thing as a table for eating purposes 
is not to be left unconsidered, for while it might only 
be that '' Aurelia" shall blush and stammer at the ad- 
mission, yet no chisel of Praxiteles is more subservient 
to the purposes of beauty than is the dull knife here 
used. 

A cage first, and the bird afterwards. 

But may not a cageless bride be as happy as a cage- 
less bird ? 

Listen, Lysias, how the storm which has increased in 
its violence now howls, and groans, and shakes with its 
cold fingers the shutters of our room. What would a 
bird do in such a whirl of hail and water and slush? 
How quickly bedraggled would become the jaunty shoe 
and the velvet train of *' Aurelia" ! The birds have fled 
before the storm, and to-night are snug nestled away 
among orange-groves, — what else than flight might 
save the daintiness of the bride — she whose train is not 



CONCERNING A WIFE. 23 

less delicate than the feathers of the bird, — she whose 
breath is as the odor of apple-blossoms ? 

A home is not a place, however, which is made such 
merely by the bringing together of glowing grates, easy- 
chairs, crimson curtains, and luxurious couches ; more, 
much more, must there be of commodities which the 
upholsterer is not found able to furnish ; there must be 
tact, and taste, and good humor, and judgment ; there 
must be bearing and forbearing, contentment and satis- 
faction ; and more to the furnishing do these latter 
things conduce, than do the former, — necessary as they 
are. 

There must be knowledge ; for, alas ! alas ! — 

shall we emphasize the ugly admission ? — the fire, and 
the passion, and the ecstasy of manly youth will, little by 
little, burn lower and lower in the grate of life. — And 
dimples, charming dimples, which common men ad- 
mire, and which poets rave over, — these will lengthen 
and grow into wrinkles ; the arched and jaunty foot 
will lose its elasticity ; the tresses, sun-courted, will 
deny the curl and the wavy grace ; admiring coteries 
shall no longer turn to catch of the grace of the divine 
one ; and thou, even thou thyself, wilt, in nature's 
law, turn aside, — yet loving not less Aurelia, — for it 
will come to thee, as it comes to all other men, to be 
compelled to learn that ''billing and cooing" may not 
constitute the whole of existence. 

Give heed, Lysias ; a man has much to learn before 
he may wisely take a wife to his home, — and much 
after. Comfort, success, and happiness come of know- 
ing — and of doing. 



II. 

CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

" These things my heart, O Pyrrho, longs to hear ; 
How you enjoy such ease of hfe and quiet, 
The only man as happy as a god." 

WHO and what we are. That is the knowledge 
which is to take precedence. Before a wife is 
the learning how to take care of one, — is to learn how 
to take care of one's self. 

Everywhere over the earth are to-day found growing 
side by side the golden pomegranates of the Hesperi- 
des and the apples of the Dead Sea, — to-day, as of 
yore, the flesh of the one is life, that of the other is 
choking dust. Streams unlike, streams of nectar, 
streams of quassia-water, flow everywhere over a com- 
mon plain, — a man may drink of sweet or of bitter as 
he elects. 

But who, my Lysias, is to distinguish between 

the pomegranate and the dust-apple, between the 
nectar-streams and the quassia-water, save him that has 
knowledge ? 
24 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 25 

Heed, Lysias; of all qualities pertaining to man, 
*' wisdom is the most useful and prudence is the most 
profitable:" Aristotle it is who has affirmed this; 
and of all the men produced by the world no single 
one might more worthily propound an aphorism which 
others should heed. Wisdom outmeasures ignorance 
even as a greater circle encloses and contains that which 
is less ; prudence takes care of a man even though folly 
shoot all her shafts at the heel Achilles. 

Portly of soul is Philocles, and full is he of the ex- 
periences of travel, observation, and reason ; and what 
teaches the poet? ''O mortals! ignorant and un- 
worthy of your destiny ; instead of cherishing the 
sacred fire, . . . instead of drawing closer and closer 
the ties which unite you with the gods, ye suffer friv- 
olous discussions and mean interests to damp the flame ; 
ye suffer near you little things which thus conceal from 
you greater which are beyond. ' ' 

It is only through wisdom that one may come to 
any proper judgment. What an ignorant and pitiable 
man was that who, when Thales inveighed against the 
pains people take to themselves in order to grow rich, 
likened the philosopher to the fox which found fault 
with that it could not obtain ! and what a meaning 
rebuke was it, when the sage, gathering together his 
learning and capacity, and condescending for a season 
to the faulter's own trade, did, in a single year, gain 
from it more of money than had the other in a long 
lifetime ! 

It was in words of some like meaning with these 
that the Stagirite addressed the son of Apollodorus. All 
modes of life, he said, and all the actions of men have 
B 3 



26 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

in view a particular end, this end being happiness. It 
is not in the end, however, that is proposed, but in the 
choice of means, that men deceive themselves. How 
often do honor, riches, and beauty prove more hurtful 
than useful ! How often has experience shown that 
disease and poverty are not in themselves injurious ! 
Thus from the idea we form of good and evil, as much 
as from the inconstancy of our will, we almost always 
act without knowing what it is we ought most to de- 
sire, or what we ought most to dread. To separate real 
from apparent good is the object of morality, which, 
unfortunately, does not proceed, like the sciences, lim- 
ited to theory. If we wish our decisions to be just and 
wise, let us consider our feelings, and acquire a just 
idea of our passions, virtues, and vices. 

We, then, who desire to be partakers of the fruit of 
the Hesperides, pause at the outstart, to consider and 
to get understanding of things relevant to such begin- 
ning ; that is, it would appear, that to get understand- 
ing of life, one may commence never more wisely than 
in comprehending of the circumstances by which he 
finds himself environed; for to learn of things and re- 
lations which, from their nearness, the most conspicu- 
ously concern a man, is surely to become familiar with 
the laws of his well-being, — is to come to an apprehen- 
sion of what does the most intimately and importantly 
pertain to good. 

Here, and hereafter? 

Here, and hereafter, Lysias ; for he who lives well to- 
day lays up store necessarily for the morrow; he who 
lives in the experiences of his time acts in the clearest 
liglit that exists for his guidance. 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 



27 



A wise saying was it, that of Montaigne's, " that all 
knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science 
of honesty and goodness;" it is that he who would grow 
the fruits of learning should possess a good soil in which 
to plant the seed. '' Odi homines ignava opera, philo- 
sophica sententia," says the Gascon : I hate men who 
talk like philosophers, but do nothing. And still an- 
other of the sayings of this great man was it, ''that 
philosophy must do harm to him who has not mind to 
comprehend its exaltation." 

It is the philosopher who is the practical man ; it is 
the fool who calls himself so. It is the observing and 
wide-seeing who are slow with words of censure ; it is 
ignorant and silly men who glory in the possession 
of prejudices. Quite enough for a man is it that he 
look to his own offertory, judging not too hastily that 
of his neighbor. In the treasury of the inhabitants of 
Acanthus they showed some iron obelisks presented by 
one of ill repute, '* Is it possible," exclaimed Ana- 
charsis, on beholding these, " that such offerings could 
have been acceptable to Apollo?" "Stranger," re- 
plied a Greek, who was likewise a spectator, " were the 
hands that raised these trophies more pure? You have 
just read on the gates of the Asylum, The inhabitants 
of Acanthus conquerors of the Athenians; and else- 
where. The Athenians conquerors of the Corinthians ; 
The Phocians of the Thessalonians, etc. These in-» 
scriptions were written in the blood of a million 
Greeks. The god is surrounded only with monuments 
of our folly and madness, and you are astonished that 
his priests should accept the offerings of Rhodope."* 

* Travels of Anacharsis. 



28 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 

It is to be understood that in order to live grandly, 
one is to act grandly ; it is that one hold himself aloof 
from the little things of little people. — Of a first im- 
portance, is it that a nobleman live in the custom of his 
peers. Shall the measurer by inches, the weigher by 
ounces, the vendor by potions, scatter, with a penny 
policy, aspirations which would girdle a world, balance 
destiny, or find medicine for immortal longings ? Let 
it impress thee, Lysias, in the very beginning, that the 
bane of true and great living is respectability, — the re- 
spectability of the shopman, — the respectability of the 
physician who sacrifices never his dignity or his man- 
ners to the invitations which are borne to him on every 
breeze, which go out with every molecule ; which cry. 
Here are ladders leading to God, — whom to know is to 
be rich indeed, — whom to know is to be enviable in- 
deed. Take to thyself, my scholar, consciousness of 
the nothingness of a respectability which has its signi- 
fication alone in the estimation of ignorant men. Is 
one to crawl forever a worm over the earth because 
that they grovel who have never developed the wings 
folded in rudiment beneath the scapulae of every mor- 
tal ? Is one to refuse the cup of the gods because that 
his fellows, knowing nothing of the delectable draught, 
insist on the waters of the ditch? 

What shall compensate for a life sacrificed to the 
respectable ? A beggar singing his song amid the rocky 
fastnesses of Chios was the author of the Iliad ; im- 
mortal as the gods, himself a demi-god, is Homer. 
What too of Euripides, him who dared rebuke an 
Archelaus, because that a king could do nothing that a 
wise man feared? What lost such a one in the ab- 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 



29 



sence of the purple ? What a rich life was here ; a 
Macedon to build his tomb, an Athens to rear his 
cenotaph, — that after a thousand years they of Salamis 
should delight to point out the grotto in which he 
wrote; they of Piraeus pronounce in transport his 
name. ** Three days," said the poet, ''have I spent 
in making three verses." ''And I," retorted an ad- 
versary, "could in that time have written a hundred." 
"Yes, yes, I believe it," replied Euripides, " but they 
would have lived only three days." And what a three 
days' life ; what a three days' existence ; what a penury; 
what a littleness of conception lived in the braggart ! 

Richer than gold is wisdom ; brighter than silver is 
knowledge. It is for the scholar — howsoever poor in 
purse — to be thankful that the greatest portion of his 
brain has been placed in his skull and not in his solar 
ganglion. What a sight is that little man whose pro- 
tuberant stomach it seems the sole office of his body to 
carry, — that little man who cackles and giggles his little 
jokes about the scholars, seeing or understanding never 
what a sad fool he makes of himself! And what a mul- 
titude of these Stomachs little heads and little legs are 
carrying about the earth, — and, alas ! unfortunates, these 
may come to no instruction ; for the avenues of the 
senses lead to the encephalon, and not to the abdomen. 

And yet, as stomachs are of greater bulk than 

brains, so also are they found endowed with a wider 
self-sufficiency. Has not a stomach opinions? Has it 
not expression? Is it not of all things the most re- 
spectable — in its own estimation ? A sad pity is it that, 
when closely inquired into, it is seen to be nothing 
better than a provision-bag. 



3° 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 



The bane of true living is the respectability of the 
Stomachs, — a dead weight is it holding to his centre 
of beef and wine the mortal whose tangent it controls. 
Substantial is he, say the Digesters, as the cares and 
anxieties are found increased ; as story after story is 
piled upon the foundation of his house \ as hour after 
hour is consumed in work, — as a cloth of gold is seen 
in weaving for the covering of the deal boards of the 
coffin in which he is to rot. 

Wisdom beholdeth the end from the beginning, and, 
considering all things, provideth for all. Wisdom sup- 
plieth wants, but maketh them not ; taketh precaution 
against emergencies, but runneth not into troubles of 
her own creating. 

Yet even is it that wisdom may become sun- 
dazzled. Learned is Timotheus, yet looking too long 
on the golden face of the noon's orb he is now found 
to be blind, and his friends behold him in pity as they 
watch him fill his purse with coins of copper, deeming 
these to be pieces of the precious metal, — poor Timo- 
theus, he who before he was dazed knew so well what 
gold was ! 

But love of wealth is an intuition of the man, 

therefore must the getting of gain be wisdom. It is not, 
however, the pile of gold that is wealth. A representa- 
tive is gold, — the representative of the home-roof shut- 
ting out the storm ; the representative of the board 
around which gathers the well-cared-for family; the 
representative of the shop or mill or farm which is the 
substantiality of the owner, and the evidence of his use- 
fulness to the society in which he lives. But the shop is 
to have its shutters up at least on Sundays and holidays ; 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 31 

the clatter of machinery may be stopped for the greas- 
ing; there is an injunction that fields sometimes lie 
fallow. 

He who has prudence covers his heels from the cold 
rather than his head ; so he who has wisdom garners 
wealth for the immortal rather than riches for the 
mortal part. 

" Were it not better to inquire 
How nature bounds each impotent desire, 
What she with ease resigns, or wants with pain, 
And then divide the sohd from the vain ? 
Say, should your jaws with thirst severely burn, 
Would you a cleanly earthen pitcher spurn ? 
Should hunger on your gnawing entrails seize, 
Would turbot only or a capon please?" 

Moderation is the secret of happiness. ''Whatever is 
beyond moderation," wisely says Menedemus, *'is not 
useful, but troublesome ; and he that is not satisfied with 
a little will never have enough." Man is for the world, 
and not the world for man ; let this be a graven maxim. 
Let a man think not to live too selfishly, for through 
selfishness shall he find himself arrived all too quickly 
at the grave of his pleasures. Grantor is a physician ; 
endowed with a meditative nature and with a mind 
keenly perceptive, it is his wont to wander in quiet 
places speculating on the mysteries of his science. 
Gifted with ready pen, it is his virtue that he writes 
the solutions of many of these mysteries, thus enlight- 
ening his fellows and benefiting widely his kind. It is 
the good fortune of Grantor that accident has so placed 
him that without detriment he may pursue his walks 
and his speculations. But Grantor has ill-judging 
friends, who, with short sight, would tempt him from 



32 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

his books and from his meditations, and all, forsooth, 
because that pieces of shining metal are to be picked up 
more frequently on the city streets than by the stream's 
side or in the shady wood. — And, alas that it is so, the 
eyes of Grantor are seen all too frequently to turn to- 
wards the heart of the great town, and towards the 
pieces of shining metal. 

And what would Grantor, and what would the 

world, lose by the change? Alexander, as the story is 
told, sent a hundred talents of gold to Phocion, be- 
cause he heard that he was a good man ; but Phocion 
returned the gold, with a request that he might be per- 
mitted to continue a good man still. So the Theban 
Grates flung, of his own accord, his money into the 
sea, exclaiming, *^ Abite, nummi ; ego vos mergam, ne 
mergar a vobis." Grantor would lose the sweet com- 
panionship of things which inspire and which ennoble ; 
would lose the teachings to which now daily he listens; 
would lose the view of the far-off mountain-tops, 

" The far-off mountain-tops of distant thoughts, 
That men of common stature never saw." 

All this, and more ; no longer in genial con- 



verse and in philosophic disputation would the scholar, 
with bared head, the winds with gentle touch playing 
lovingly with his still lustrous locks, have time and 
converse for the friends who now meet him in the 
wood by the water-side ; no longer would the lectures 
of the master smell as now of fruit and flowers, but all 
too quickly the odor would become that of the hos- 
pital and the dead-house. It would be that Grantor, 
in becoming a dispenser of medicines, would cease to 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. t^^, 

be a distributer of ideas. — It would be, that in some 
distant day the physician would count his pieces of 
shining metal, and in the memory of a past, a dead 
past, a past gone forever, would sigh, imo pectore^ 
''Trojafuit." 

It is the end and success of a man's life that he find 
himself in comfort, in content, and in faith : he who 
has come to these finds nothing in the past to re- 
gret, sees nothing in the future to fear; such a man 
has attained to fulness. 

Life \ — a simple thing is it when lived in the laws of 
nature. 

*' O noble man," said the Chian to Arcesilaus, "may 
I a question put, or must I hold my tongue?" And is 
it not, my Lysias, for him who would be wise, that he 
put questions to that other Arcesilaus, Knowledge, in 
order that to his necessities he may bring the gold of 
Seuthes ? 

It is, my scholar, for a man to understand that there 
are things mortal and things immortal ; things which 
pertain to the flesh, and things which pertain to the 
soul: so it is that wisdom, having both to consider, 
and both to provide for, is felt to be a something not too 
low for the proud, nor too high for the humble. Heed, 
Lysias, it is the command of the oracle that a man 
know first himself. 

O gracious Knowledge, which banishest doubt, which 
castest out confusion, which dispellest illusion, makest 
tortuous things straight, and illuminest the obscure! — 
O Life ! beautiful, and grand, and all-satisfying art 
thou to him who comprehends what it is to live. 



34 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

But Death ! — Death ! the earth is full of death, and 
there is no permanency. 

O Ignorance ! let man execrate thee ; thou, thou 
alone art death, and beside thee is there none other j 
the demon of affliction art thou to mankind, apart from 
thee exists no evil. Ah ! thou black-winged vampire- 
thing, lift up thy hideous form ; let the eyes covered 
by thy smothering breast look out, that it may come to 
them to behold what is beyond, — to see to what cometh 
even so mean a thing as a worm. 

And what is this goblin story about death ; this 

bugbear which frightens grown-up children ? O 

miraculous chameleon ! having color that is, and yet is 
not. O God-like phenomenon ! that what to mortal 
eyes should seem as falling into nothingness, is, in 
truth, growing in fulness. 

** Hard is the fate of mortals," sighed a Locust, as he 
felt his efforts all too feeble to resist the unseen some- 
thing which was thrusting him from what he called him- 
self; but on another day coming back and beholding 
the dry shell that still adhered to the tree, — the shell 
which had grown so crusty, and hard, and colorless, 
and which had so cramped and so constrained him, — 
he said to a companion, **How great a fool is a 
Locust!" 

Who is he that says, *' Our Father," yet sets him- 
self up as a Wiser than God? ** Life," cries the pent- 
up nature, **more life, wider life." Yet closer and 
closer, firmer and firmer, the mortal clings to that which 
separates him from his desire. Fret on thy chain, thou 
dim-seeing, near-sighted, ignorant one ; with each 
remove shall it grow heavier to thee. Natural is it that 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 35 

the miscomprehending man rebel as he feels himself 
passing into cramps and shackles ; that he chafe and 
fret against the links; that he find fault with heavy- 
growing limbs, and with myopic eyes that may look 
alone towards a grave. Verily, hard, very hard must 
it be to know of fulness only as a something which was 
of yesterday; to esteem the road of life as having 
crossed the summit, that the way is one leading down 
the hill, — down the cold side of the hill ; no longer 
any upward look ; no longer gold-tinted clouds, no 
longer the loves of old ; but the Styx, the black Styx 
flowing drearily in its unbroken silence at the foot; 
the grim boatman of the tideless river waiting to bear 
the unwilling freight — where ? Ah, unhappy one ! go 
to the locust for a lesson. 

No death, sayest thou ? 

No death, Lysias ; never yet has death come into the 
world. To die — as man calls dying — is to change, — 
only to change ; is to pass from an old shell into one 
new and fresh ; is to assume bright colors and gay 
attributes ; is to lapse into some other expression of the 
great thing called life ; is to go to other office ; is to 
follow the beckoning of nature that one may be where 
most needed, — that one may be in that fashion best 
suited to a necessity. Poor Cephalus ! how outgrown 
and outworn is the pattern of his form ! Think, Ly- 
sias, of the happy revivification awaiting the tottering 
sage : perhaps he is to be of the grand winds which 
eddy about the earth ; perchance of rivers which flow 
to and from the sea ; or as form of babe which nestles 
and joys in a mother's arms ; or maybe he shall pass 
to the life of the fagot picked from the way-side, which, 



36 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

when the torch is applied, flashes forth into flame, 
making warm old and cold hands ; or might he not 
come to be as a bird which helps the husbandman by 
picking slugs from the vine ? or as a fish which swims 
in the sea ? or as an eagle which mocks the heights of 
unsealed mountains? 

" For once I was a boy, and once a girl, 
A bush, a bird, a fish who swims the sea." 

Right is Empedocles, the heritage of matter 



is transmigration : man cometh up from the ground 
and goeth back unto that whence he came. — Wait, 
wait only a little time, Cephalus, and the heavy limbs 
and the weary eyes shall be ashes — the 

Thou wilt hear naught of ashes ? neither shalt thou ; 
dust affiliates with life, and ashes are as the resurrec- 
tion. 

Ah ! but the interim, sayest thou ; the coffined body, 
and the mouldering form. 

Go, Lysias, and sympathize with the seed which yes- 
terday thou buried, but which to-morrow is to win for 
its flower a place on the breast of beauty ; place crape 
over the spot wherein thou placed it ; lay thy weeping 
eye to the earth and mourn the seed as a something 
lost, — as a something gone from thee forever. Yet turn 
thou as well hastily away, for it takes a buried seed not 
long to thrust life out of its death. Where has gone, 
Lysias, the roundness which, but a month back, was 
the beauty of Phryne? Did she bury it? Do crape 
and urn weep over it? Where are the muscles of An- 
taeus, which, only a short year ago, did defeat in wres- 
tling all who passed the cave at Libya? Pare thy nails. 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 37 

Lysias, and, with coffin and procession, have funeral of 
the cuttings; 'or do thou rub off the scarf-skin of thy 
body, — that all of thee which human eyes behold; say 
that what yesterday was Lysias has disappeared, and 
with sad lamentations bid relatives weep the loss of that 
no longer needed. It was by the wall that skirts the 
way leading to the house of Lysander that Antheros 
watched a serpent cast its skin, and as the scholar pon- 
dered, behold two great beetle-bugs issuing from the 
ground solved for him the riddle upon which he medi- 
tated ; for these did drag the skin into the hole whence 
they had come, and did make it over into their own 
lives, and into the lives of their offspring. — But the ser- 
pent was well rid of the slough, for in his freedom he 
found himself able to go to the tangle and shade which 
invited, and where a new robe awaited him.* 

But a dead Lysias steps not forth a new Lysias ? 

Sayest thou so ? Into what then does he step ? Bury 
not the parings of thy nails; eat them; bite off and 
swallow into thy stomach the hard derm with which 
the spade has thickened the cushions of thy palms : 
thus mayest thou make Lysias feed Lysias ; thus resur- 
rect a dying self into a living self. But — would Lysias 
desire to remain Lysias forever? Ah, my scholar, 
little knowest thou of transformations which are ever 
new, yet ever old ; ever the same, yet ever some- 
thing else. O kind Mater Natura ! — who hast given all 



Non jam se moriens dissolvi conqueretur, 

Sed majis foras, vestemque relinquere, ut anguis 

Gauderet praelonga senex aut cornua cervus." 

Cicero. 

4 



38 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

of life as a common possession ; who hast so ordered 
and so arranged that all enjoyments are enjoyed by all. 

" Even as one heat another heat expels, 
Or as one nail by strength drives out another, 
So all remembrance of a former love 
Is by a newer object quite forgotten." 

But can that life be aught than nothingness where 
love replaces love, where heat expels heat, and where 
nails drive out nails? 

Thou deniest not, my Lysias, that a new nail is 
better than one worn and rusty? that the fresh heat 
which to-day comes from the furnace is more to the 
wants of to-day than that given out yesterday ? And 
is the love of the present less warm than those other 
loves of the past ? 

Yes ! but the love that goes from Lysias, what is to 
give this back? What is to cheer a heart passing into 
the sere and yellow? Who smooth out wrinkles? What 
bring back escaping passions? Ah, Lysias, who is to 
save thee from being pushed into nothingness ? 

Thou didst not hear the story, Lysias, of a pearl 
which found its life only in the wounding and mutation 
of that wherein it dwelt. From the slime of the river 
the jewel passed to enshrinement in the coiffure of a 
princess. Heed thou, my scholar, it is the eternal 
principle of life, and not a body, not any body, which 
is real existence ; yet, in the ways of nature, this prin- 
ciple is to the man — while it is with him — what a pearl 
is to an oyster. Who may separate an unsecreted pearl 
from an oyster-shell ? Yet where else is the gem ? 
Heed the lesson of Cebes. " See, O Cebes, that if we 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 39 

have not agreed on these things improperly, as it 
appears to me ; for if one class of things were not con- 
stantly given back in the place of another, revolving as 
it were in a circle, but generations were direct from 
one thing alone into its opposite, and did not turn 
round again to the other, or retrace its course, do you 
not know that at length all things would have the 
same form, be in the same state, and cease to be pro- 
duced ? By no means difficult is it to understand this : 
if, for instance, there should be such a thing as falling 
asleep, but no reciprocal waking again produced from 
a state of sleep, you know that at length all things 
would show the fable of Endymion to be a jest, and 
it would be thought nothing at all of, because every- 
thing else would be in the same state as he, namely, 
asleep. And if all things were mingled together, but 
never separated, that doctrine of Anaxagoras would 
soon be verified, ' all things would be together.' Like- 
wise, my dear Cebes, if all things that partake of life 
should die, and after they are dead should remain in this 
state of death, and not revive again, would it not neces- 
sarily follow that at length all things should be dead, 
and nothing alive? for if living things are produced 
from other things, and living things die, what could 
prevent their being all absorbed in death?" Doubt 
not, Lysias, that a Socrates goes not to Hades with- 
out a divine destiny : listen thou rather with Echec- 
rates to the story of a Phaedo, and learn that what are 
deemed solemn occasions are, to the wise man, seasons 
of joy — or, if weep thou wilt at the poison-cup, learn, 
with ApoUodorus, that tears and laughter happily com- 
mingle. 



40 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

Yes, yes; but what shall save Lysias to himself? 
What shall preserve the individuality ? 

Seest thou, Lysias, yonder bevy of young and fresh 
maidens ? Where were these when, together, thou and 
I sang our song as we floated down the Danube ? Re- 
memberest thou the exhilaration, the laughter, the free 
and careless grace, of those days long passed away? 
More laughter then than now, Lysias ; and was not our 
wit brighter, as certainly the legs of one of us at least 
were stronger? 

It brings sadness, thou sayest, the remembrance of 
these hours. 

And why sadness ? Did we not have our sail over 
the river? Did we not have our hours of wit and 
of laughter? Did we not climb the mountains? and 
did we not pass from the loves of Como to the mys- 
teries of Baden ? The bevy of maidens, Lysias, were 
not with us on the river, neither in the mountains ; no- 
thing had these of our delight, or of our sensations. — 
As when, in turn, adown the grape-smelling stream 
these shall float, we shall know nothing of what they 
enjoy, of what they feel, or of what they think. 

And shall not the maidens so fresh and fair give, in 
turn, place as well as freshness to other maidens who 
are to follow them ? And will not these again in good 
time pass on, that room may be afforded still others? 
Came not the maidens, Lysias, from whence the suc- 
cessors are to come ? and shall the others and others 
who are coming, come from nothing ? May a nothing 
produce a something? How then otherwise is it but 
that which is to come, now is ? Is not the fruit in the 
bud ? the bud in the tree ? and is not the tree in the 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 



41 



earth and in the atmosphere ? and are not earth and 
air — that which are the tree and the bud and the fruit 
— immortal? Does matter cease to be? Think, Ly- 
sias ; is it not joyous to note the bud set by the spring- 
time as a garnet upon the branchlet finger of a bough ? 
and is it not with growing pleasure that we see the 
coming fruit, that we watch its development ? What 
then, Lysias? shall we pray Nature stay here her hand ? 
Shall the beautiful fruit which has had its season of leaf 
and of blossom be now left to rot in the summer's sun or 
to wither and shrink up in the winter's cold ? Ah, Lysias, 
see here the foolishness of ignorance ; give to the 
maiden, who is to go to the Danube, that she may eat 
thy fruit, and its luscious juices shall she convert into 
the gazing eyes which are to drink in the beautiful sights 
of the river, — that in turn, Lysias, the orbs shall give 
forth fire for other fruitions, — that a Dido shall live in 
a Carthage, — that a Semi ram is shall rear the towers 
which look skyward from Babylon. O Nature ! boun- 
tiful and miraculous, that giving once life, thou ever 
continues! it ; that affording once form, thou laborest 
unceasingly to change the old into the new, the worn-out 
and dejected into the vigorous and the joy-absorbing. A 
matter for gratulation is it, Lysias, and not for sorrow, 
that the dweller by the river-bank is permitted to go 
to grand outlooks of the mountain ; that the bud may 
change until it becomes the fragrance of a blossom ; 
the blossom give its odor for the fruit ; that the fruit 
may come to the sensations of him who eats of it. 

And wherefore is it, Lysias, that wisdom doubt- 

eth ever the fitness of things, save that what is esteemed 
wise is not of truth but of error ? and that men who are 



42 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

called learned are, in truth, ignorant. Wiser than wis- 
dom is that which is itself knowledge, and in the voices 
of nature, simple though they seem, are orations more 
profound than ever Athenians received from lips of 
lofty Pericles. 

To attain to true wisdom is to recognize with him 
of Sinope, **That between life and death there is no 
difference, that the great law governing life is that of 
transmigration." 

Say, Lysias, wouldst thou, having in store many new 
and inviting dishes, desire to taste of all, or rather 
wouldst thou eat alone of that which has grown flat 
from time, and stale? '^Of the new and fresh," thou 
sayest. So be it. The new is that with which a kind 
Nature ever replaces the old ; and wilt thou deny the 
good only in that it comes not served on a familiar 
dish? — not upon thy own gold-banded plates? What ! 
if a man live justly and moderately and temperately, 
must he not then live pleasurably ? and living pleasur- 
ably does he not live in fulness? Yet, fulness attained, 
must it not of necessity become in turn emptiness? 
does not the sun absorb ever the contents of the foun- 
tain ? and does not the atmosphere drink up all moist- 
ure ? Is it not mercy, Lysias, in the sun, that it saves 
from loathsome putridity the glittering spray ? and is 
it not charity in the atmosphere, that it bears the water 
to new missions ? 

It is mercy, and it is charity, thou sayest. 

How, then, failest thou in perceiving that same mercy 
and charity which as well so immediately consort for 
the good of Lysias, inasmuch as they come with power 
to change decrepitude into vigor, ugliness into beauty, 



COXCE/aX/XG THIXGS TO BE AXOIVX. 43 

and acre into vouth? A man becomes chansred in the 
sight of others by so simple an act as the putting on 
of a garment. Only change is it when his fashion 
alters to that of a cloud or a wave, a clod or a leaf. 

But where, thou askest, is the passion of Lysias in a 
cloud, where the expression of the senses in a leaf? 

Has it not come to thee, my scholar, to watch the 
vapor turning its blush to the sun for the golden tint, 
or to observe the leaf athirst and dust-dried changing 
in suffering the outlook of its face ? What matters it, 
Lysias, to what uses a mother puts her children ? and 
what matters it though these uses be changed and varied 
day by day? It may not but be that wisdom, like 
taith, begets confidence. What heeds it, mother, that 
the breath of the child has been needed for the odorous 
throat of the lily? — Is a lily less tenderly cared for than 
was thy babe ? — Is a lily less beautifully arrayed than 
was thy little manikin ? It was becoming in thee, 
mother, that thou didst create so sweet a fragrance for 
the nostrils of the Infinite. Do not spoil the offering 
by ignorant complainings. It is, that the child has 
gone forth to other missions. It is, that God is using 
it? — Who knows best, God or thou? Heed, Lysias, it 
is a weary, weary thing to grow into age and decrep- 
itude. — Shall one not desire it as the best of things 
that he be born again ? Make thou not the mistake, 
my scholar, of confounding Lysias with the world ; all 
ignorant men so blunder. I would not have thee a 
Sciolist. 

* * * Yes, yes ; thou needest not to remind me that 
it is to philosophize when die other men's wives and 
when are biu-ied other men's hopes. It is a law of 



44 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 

nature that the eyes weep ; it is not contrary to instinct 
that one prays : yet both these actions evince lack of 
faith. I teach thee, my scholar, the facts of thy exist- 
ence; of thy relations with Nature. With Socrates 
thou mayest ask of God that which of thyself thou 
canst not understand. — But it is beautiful that the 
pearls are not doomed to remain hid forever in oyster- 
shells. — It is an odorous thought that the babe goes 
from the coverlets of the cradle, from the threaten- 
ings of mortal existence, to mingle with, and help 
make, that bouquet which is the fragrance of life. 
God giveth, and God taketh away, Lysias ; blessed 
be the name of God. 

Heed thou ! Is pain, crushing, racking pain, not a 
good ? Yet how few are there but esteem it an evil ! 
How else than by pain might disease announce itself? 
That which the unappreciative fear as an enemy, the 
physician recognizes as a sentinel saviour ; and so will 
it be found of all things, — of all things, Lysias. This 
thy mentor feels that he knows, even though he lacks 
the skill to unfold the problem. He who puts his 
whole trust in Nature — in God — never shall be brought 
to confusion. 

What Hiero shall distinguish to a Simonides the 
pleasures of the king from the pleasures of a common 
ifnan ? Have not both eyes with which to see, ears with 
which to hear, palates for taste, and nostrils for scents? 
Sleeps not the king? and sleeps not the subject? And 
who is to describe the sensations of a leaf which unrolls 
itself from the bud that it may greet the sunshine ? or 
who tell of the joys of a wave that sings to the beach 
its song of greeting ? Say not, Lysias, that the unfold- 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 45 

ing of the leaf is natural fruition, and that the murmur 
of a wave is natural noise. What is voice of human 
child but a passing breath modified by the moving 
chords of a larynx? and what are joy-dancing limbs 
but expressions of muscular movements ? — how turns a 
child from shade to sunshine ? and how changes a leaf 
its face from sunshine to shade? — Except, Lysias, as it 
concerns the man, the child, which, being once with 
us, is ever with us — the entelechy — so is there no iota of 
difference between one object of nature and another. 
Neither is there discrimination in care given by the 
Providence which rules over all. 

" Where are the blossoms of summer ? — In the west, 
Blushing their last to the sunny hours, 
Where the mild eve by sudden, night is prest, 
Like tearful Proserpine, snatched from her flowers, 

To a most gloomy breast. 
Where is the pride of Summer — the green prime — 
The many, many leaves" of all twinkling? . . . 
Where is the Dryad's immortality? — 
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, 
Or wearing the long winter through 
In the smooth holly's green eternity." 

Who, then, shall waste tears over that which changes ? 

Askest thou, Lysias, if the wise man prepare not for 
change, and yet considerest not the answer given by 
the master to the son of Hipponicus? ** Hermogenes, 
have I not steadily persisted, throughout life, in a dili- 
gent endeavor to do nothing which is unjust? and this 
I take to be the best and most honorable preparation. 
. . . Know you not that hitherto I have yielded to no 
man that he hath lived more uprightly or even more 



46 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

pleasurably than myself, — possessed, as I was, of that 
well-grounded self-approbation arising from the con- 
sciousness of having done my duty both to the gods 
and man, my friends also bearing testimony to the in- 
tegrity of my conversation ?" And what further was it 
concerning this matter that Cambyses said ? ** As from 
men, so likewise from the gods, the most likely person 
to obtain his suit is not he who when in distress flatters 
servilely, but he who in his most happy circumstances is 
most 7nindful of the gods. ' ' 

Then the wise man heeds alone a present, and lets a 
past and a future take care of themselves ? 

Good ! Lysias, he may do nothing better, or more 
in way of service to his Creator. A man is, in his day, 
to eat, drink, and make merry. 

" Every leisure hour employ 
* In mirth, in revelry, in joy : 

Laugh, and sing, and dance, and play, 

Drive corroding care away : 

Join the gay and festive train, 

And make old age grow young again." 

But is one to take no thought of the cares and ills 
of life? 

And what are these, my Lysias ? what are the cares 
of a leaf? and what the ills of a clod ? and is that body 
of man which mortal things can touch of different make 
from leaf or clod? and if not different, what cares 
or ills may come to it ? Is not the common mother 
Nature the care-taker of us all ? Fail not to perceive 
that ills and cares exist most in artificialities. ''What a 
deal of business and trouble have you at your meals, 
grandfather," said the boy Cyrus to Astyages, "if 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 



47 



you must reach out your hands to all these several 
dishes, and taste of all these kinds of meat !" " What 
then ?" asked Astyages : ** do you not think this enter- 
tainment much finer than what you have in Persia?" 
*' No, grandfather : with us we have a much plainer and 
readier way to get satisfied than you have ; for plain 
meat and bread suffices for our meal ; but you, in order 
to the same end, have a deal of business on your hands; 
and, wandering up and down through many mazes, you 
at last arrive where we have got long before you." * 

But one may have his limbs torn ; and then will his 
eyes be suffused through the anguish of his pain. 

Yes ; and a cloud is broken up and is scattered as 
rain-drops, the leaf is wrung from its stem, the clod is 
torn under the harrow : yet the life of the cloud is not 
hurt, for it is seen to bring forth freshness ; the leaf per- 
chance passes to the delightful attar; while from the 
pulverized earth grass springs out to cover and to beau- 
tify the ground. Believe, Lysias, that he whose knowl- 
edge brings him to a comprehension of the thing called 
life, fears not to change. Is not the body external? is 
it more than a garment to that which is enrobed ? and 
while one regrets the tearing of a robe, is he incon- 
solable, knowing that means exist to the repair? Evil 
is as the circumference which a man draws about and 
around himself: shall not the bulky stand more in fear 
of the lance than the lean ? Does not Crito, whose 
wealth extends itself over half the streets of Athens, suffer 
from the flames of conflagration, while to the Satyr these 
same flames are as pictures of beauty drawn over a black 

* Xenophon. — Institution of Cyrus. 



48 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

sky? Who, having nothing to lose, trembles when a 
Polycrates is afloat on the ^Egean? Or who, being 
without avarice or cupidity, needs to cower at the cross 
of Oroetes? 

But does not philosophy as well as piety speak of, 
and commend, prayer ? 

Confound not reason, Lysias, in losing the distinc- 
tion between the soul of man and the matter of his 
body ; for thought and spake Athens's greatest sage not 
well when he affirmed that to importune God with our 
inquiries concerning things of which we may gain the 
knowledge by number, weight, or measure, is a kind 
of impiety? it being, as it seemed to him, incumbent 
on man to make himself acquainted with whatever God 
has placed within his power ; as for such things as were 
beyond his comprehension, for these he ought always 
to apply to the oracle ; God being ever ready to com- 
municate knowledge to those whose care has been to 
render him propitious.* For what, Lysias, does the 
philosopher more than the simple man where questions 
of soul are involved ? but what does he not more than 
the simple man in enduring things called ills, but which 
he has learned to know as passing nothings? Under- 
standest thou, Lysias, the oneness of a thing omni- 
present yet individual? then comprehendest thou the 
all, and yet the nothingness, of prayer. Pra3^er has 
concern to the soul, and not to corporeal things, which 
are common and easily come at. Who asks too freely 
in prayer does so only in his ignorance of the law in 
which man lives. 

*• Xenophon.— Memoirs of Socrates, 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 49 

Yes, ignorant indeed would that man seem to be 
who solicits too continuously. Wonderfully better is 
God than such a one wots of. Look around, Lysias. 
What is there that has been left unprovided for? What 
is found that seems as unconsidered ? Lacks a man 
bread, the field is the almoner. Let the hungered with 
spade and plough say his prayer to the earth. God is 
not found waiting to be solicited. The ground and 
men's arms are Providence. 

* He who prays and whines for daily bread — save that 
he delves with coulter and blade — must seek to make 
God a liar. Is it not the law that "in the sweat of 
the face the bread is to be eaten" ? A beggar indeed 
is such a one, — as offensive in the sight of heaven as 
is the mendicant in that of good men. What would 
the caitiff have of Providence ? Is the great Care-Taker 
to be solicited to the office of feeding with fork and 
spoon ? Shall other levator nasi than his own ex- 
pand the nostril that the abundant air may enter? 

How shall I speak to thee, my scholar, of the mercy 
called special Providence, and yet offend not against 
thy inexperience, — offend not against that faith which 
is the greatest wealth a man may garner to himself? 
Better be without experience than without faith ; better 
be without knowledge than without confidence in the 
''Father who is in heaven." The earth is full of the 
mercy of God. Neither sparrow nor hair falls to the 
ground without that it is seen by the eye of tlie Care- 
Taker. 

I commend, my scholar, that, being as yet ignorant, 
thou inquire not too curiously into the dispensations 
of Providence ; for while interrogation brings the wise 
c 5 



50 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

man to stronger faith, — to faith that the overtop- 
pling of a world might not shake or confomid, — yet 
it may lead the slim inquirer only to Atheism and to 
confusion. The safety and the salvation of man are 
in law, which law has been so wondrously prearranged 
that answer to prayer is found within a man's own self. 
Call the surgeon when the torn artery is jetting forth 
the life : here is saving Providence. Find the Father's 
protection in the judgment which needs but to be 
heeded that it keep one's feet from the dangers of the 
over-driven car or the ill-manned ship : here is saving 
Providence. 

It is, my scholar, that the services of life are 

performed alone through means, and of all the instru- 
ments by which God works, man is the strongest and 
most capable. Heed, Lysias, ''Man is the temple of 
the Holy Ghost." It is God himself who declares 
that his residence is in man. 

It is in the fulness of wisdom, Lysias, that a man 
learns that he has been appointed his own care-taker, 
and in such knowledge he finds himself not weighed 
down, but the rather elevated, inasmuch that coming to 
such apprehension he discerns that the means of se- 
curity are not wanting \ seeing that he may have what 
he needs for the asking, he puts forth in effect the di- 
vinity that he finds within himself, and thus receives 
answer to his prayer. See, Lysias, what a sad and fool- 
ish pleading would that seem to be which for an indi- 
vidual good seeks to persuade change in a law which is 
the safety of all. A very ignorant savage is he who has 
not learned that his Fetich does not answer the prayers 
directed to save from the prick of the poisoned arrow : 



CONCERNING THINGS 7 BE KNOWN. 51 

the learned, however, as well prays, but his Fetich is a 
bit of caustic silver, and to his prayer he has answer. 
To learn godliness is to come to the understanding that 
dependence is to be upon one's self. He who lacks 
health, let him set himself to the understanding of sick- 
ness ; he who needs a house, let him of his own force 
gather rafters and roofing. 

God is knowledge ; and knowledge is, at all times, 
and under all circumstances, salvation. To pray, to 
wrestle in prayer, should be to the end of correlating 
into one's self the Deus mundi, — should be to the end 
of growing and increasing within one's self that which is 
the divine part of man. It is as through physical exer- 
cise a man is found to enlarge lungs and muscles and 
bones and thus to increase lustiness. He who exercises 
himself not in prayer dwindles and shrinks in his di- 
vinity; and it may well be that all the God goes out of 
him,* just as with him who denies exercise to the limbs 
it is found that sooner or later the office of the joints 
departs them. 

" Thyself and thy belongings 
Are not thine own so proper, as to waste 
Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee. 
Heaven doth with us as we with torches do ; 
Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues 
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched 
But for high purposes ; nor nature lends 
The smallest of her excellence, 
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
Herself the glory of a creditor, 
Both thanks and uses." 

•* See "Two Thousand Years After." 



52 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

Prayer, true prayer, is trust : "■ Not my will, O Father, 
but Thine be done." What but wisdom might ask 
aright ? and what man is there that hath wisdom ? But 
are there not, thou askest, thanks to be given for the 
good received? Oh, truly, truly, Lysias; and he alone 
is worthy of the name of man whose soul is forever 
uttering thanks to the Infinite. 

Uttering thanks, uttering thanks ; and what for ? 
For that life is,— that it forever shall be,— that all is in 
common, — that law exists, — that it is unchanging and 
unwavering, — that by this law man is permitted to arbi- 
trate his own destiny, to be high or low, healthy or 
unhealthy, noble or ignoble, happy or miserable, as he 
wills. What more than this may man have, what more 
might he ask? 

" For when he saw all things that had regard 
To life's subsistence for mankind prepared, 
That men in wealth and honors did abound, 
That with a noble race their joys were crowned, 
That yet they groaned with cares and fears oppressed, 
Each finding a disturber in his breast, 
He then perceived the fault lay hid in man, 
In whom the bane of his own bliss began." 

Ah, Lysias, true must it be that the man who prays 

not is sunk and lost in nothingness ; but not more ap- 
preciative is he whose altar smoketh alone with obla- 
tions of supplication. — Shall the child importune the 
watchful parent who knoweth and heedeth what things 
are best for it? Shall a dumb brute deny the leadings 
of the rein that directeth to the master's crib ? He who 
prays truly, Lysias, has naught of language with which 
to frame speech ; only may such a one stand dumb. 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 53 

and, with eyes and heart turned upward — wonder. 
Prayer may have no formula : each breath inspired, as 
it brings with it life and refreshment, is to carry back 
thanks; each sensation is to be an offering, each rap- 
ture a worship , for say, Lysias, who, being athirst, may 
quaff cool waters and know no gratitude? who, being 
hungry, may eat yet heed not ? 

And who, Lysias, finding himself in a life to which 

his own efforts have not tended, is to doubt the fulnef^s 
and fruition of existence ? Could he have come if he had 
not been — and had not been needed ? May a some- 
thing develop from nothing? And a man, being, may 
he do aught save that which pertains to the office of his 
organization ? Does not the tree fulfil an intention when 
it brings forth fruit according to its kind, so likewise 
the herb when it grows the savor for the meat ? and is a 
man not in the way of duty when his fruition is in ac- 
cordance with his abilities, — the coarse and muscular to 
produce images, the nervous and sensitive to evolve 
ideals? — for say, Lysias, without the genius of the latter 
by what models might the former work? and without 
the labor of the former of what use were the ideas of 
the latter? May melody have voice but in instrumen- 
tation ? — may the caught thought speak its meaning 
but in the lines of the scribe? 

It is, then, Lysias, for a man to do always according 
to the measure of that which he finds within himself, 
and not to query as to differences which he perceives 
to exist between himself and other men ; for has it not 
been seen fit by the Deity, as wisely affirmed by Plato, 
that into those who are to govern gold has been min- 
gled, into the military silver, and into husbandmen and 
5* 



54 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 

artificers iron and brass? and may he who does his best 
do better, or do aught more fitting or useful to the 
purposes of his Creator ? Weigh thyself, Lysias, and let 
the fulness of the weight be found ever in the balance. 

But how shall a man weigh himself and how live in 
his fulness ? 

And dost thou ask these questions in earnestness and 
with desire to truth ? 

The proper meaning of a thing, my scholar, is to be 
sought for alone in its ending; in a single sentence is 
to be found the question of questions. To what e?id ? 
Yet who shall meditate, and who solve questions, but he 
who has time for such offices? for what was that queried 
of Lysander when he had determined in solitude to woo 
the goddess? "And so thou art determined, my Ly- 
sander, to cut thyself loose from the Mnelange,' from 
the * imperium in imperio,* and all for a few cabbages, 
and the music, as thou callest it — dreary stuff — of mea- 
dow frogs." Yet is it not well declared that '' Vatia 
alone knows how to live, and may better examples be 
quoted of such as have attained to the wealth that is 
begotten of contemplative retirement than such wise 
mortals as Democritus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, and 
Jovius' ' ? Neither might truer aphorism be quoted than 
*' Homo solus aut deus, aut daemon," for most true is 
it that in solitude is a man best able to see whether he 
has in him most of saint or devil. Man, in society, is 
modified — unconsciously modified — by and of his sur- 
roundings: if this comes not of the leges scriptae, 
then it is of the leges non scriptae, and the latter is 
not unfrequently the stronger law; for even does it 
prescribe the fashion of a garment and compel the 



CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 55 

wearing of a smile broad enough and deep enough to 
cover up and hide a scowling heart. In society it is 
that man finds food for his impulses : the envious 
drink of gall and wormwood ; the good discover ob- 
jects for their love and charity; while the vital and 
lusty, as a Themistocles, see in the glory of a Miltiades 
the compensation for heroic deeds. — But society is the 
ignis-fatuus to him who leads not, but is led ; and not 
of much length is the meandering which suffices to lose 
the natural man. 

Before flowers are the seed and culture ; and as are 
these, so is the bloom. A seed produces according 
to the earth with which it is commingled, and the 
ground brings forth not otherwise than as pertains to a 
nucleus found in it. Seed produce their kind and sow 
them. Yet many weak seeds filling the ground may 
come at length to be over-shaded, and killed out, by a 
single germ of superior strength. Do not a million 
spears of grass disappear in the shade that comes of an 
acorn ? For what does Plutarch tell us of the effem- 
inacy and delights of the great Caesar? Had not 
the Roman in his heart Cleopatra, and Eunoe, and 
Posthumia, and Servilla? and yet were not these all 
smothered by a single seed of ambition which grew up 
with them ? 

Take heart, my scholar ; a great thing, a most com- 
plex thing, is life. Yet withal is it a most simple thing. 
That which it most concerns a man to have constantly 
in his mind is. That if he do not a duty to-day, in 
some way the rejnission is to be accounted for o?i the 
niorfow. A fact of great signification is this. I leave 
thee, LysiaSj that thou mayesf: ponjder over it. 



III. 

CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 

" Let me live harmlessly ; and near the brink 
Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place, 
Where I may see my quill or cork down sink 
With eager bite of perch, or bleak, or dace ; 
And on the world and my Creator think : 
While some men strive ill-gotten goods t' embrace, 
And others spend their time in base excess 
Of wine ; or, worse, in war or wantonness." 

COME, my Lysias, the day has all the gladsomeness of 
the early summer-time, let us together hurry from 
the seats of trade, from the places given up to conten- 
tion and to fever-begetting commotion, \that in some 
quiet spot we may find the contemplative\ shade, and 
in discourse with nature learn the unwisdmn of those 
whose ways we avoid. \ 

* * * * How fresh and inviting is this gr^ss- and 
alder-bordered wood-stream ! how restful is the droop 
of the willow-branches ! how soothing the dryad song 
of the flowing water ! It is very satisfying, my Scholar, 
this sense of a oneness with the Common All, which, 
56 



CONCERNING QUIET IICURS. 57 

in such seclusion, comes to the meditative. Look up, 
Lysias, above is the sky ; let thy sight drop, supporting 
us is a common earth, — common to man and alder- 
bushes, to the drooping willow-branches and the sing- 
ing water-nymphs — for are not all of kindredship — all 
of one origin, the sky alike with the earth, the dryads 
alike with men ? Feel the velvety softness of this moss 
couch ; needs simplicity to seek pallet more luxurious? 
or might the proud hope to find ornamentation more 

refined, or to discover seat more attractive? Ah, my 

Scholar, here it is, here upon the moss-beds by the side 
of singing streams, that man is to find his most gratify- 
ing dreams ; that he is to listen for the sweetest sounds. 
In quiet places it is that the Heart's-ease grows. 

But the day is called practical, and stream and 

grove are neglected for mart and workshop ; men rub 
the drowsy eyes as they hurry to the counter, and from 
morning to night, from school -desk to coffin, time is 
found for little else save that which serves but to debase 
and to drag down ; for is not that debasing, and is not 
that dragging down, which gives possession to an in- 
sidious foe, perverting to mean uses faculties designed 
for the ransoming and for the glory of men ? Not but 
what it is in the way of a true and proper use of life 
that a man strive for his sustenance, and for the suste- 
nance of such as are dependent ; but that it is living to 
meaner purpose than the idiot to sacrifice soul and its 
longings to body and its sensuality ; the pure and en- 
nobling to the turbid and demeaning ; to seal up eyes 
and ears, and to hold in bondage the immortal to the 
mortal parts. And such jailers are most men unto 
themselves, and so continue to be until no soul is left 
c* 



58 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 

to be imprisoned; the divine Essence little by little 
eluding locks and bars, and the prison-house being 
found at the last no less or more a sensuous body than 

are other clay-built structures. True, most true is it, 

my Scholar, that a man is what he wills himself to be, 
— high or low, noble or ignoble, mortal or divine. 

No time for the placid wood-stream? no time 

for winding walks by devious river-banks? no time for 
draughts of the ambrosia which in full measure is run- 
ning in eternal freshness from the mountain springs of 

the gods? Well, poor man ! keep to thy shop; go 

thou never away from the pave ; in place of the nectar 
open thy mouth for the mixtures of the apothecary ; 
hold thou, and suck thou, sponge-like; ''absorb and 
bloat and die," plenty of company hast thou; cling 
thou by thy rock ; no lesson is it for thee that day by 
day other full sponges are seen to fall off and be in 
their place no more. 

** I have a rich neighbor," says the simple-hearted 
angler, " that is always so busy that he has no leisure to 
laugh ; the whole business of his life is to get money, 
more money, that he may still get more. * The dili- 
gent hand maketh rich.' And it is true, indeed; but 
he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to 
make a man happy ; for it was wisely said by one of 
great observation, ' that there be as many miseries be- 
yond riches as on this side of them.' And yet heaven 
deliver us from pinching poverty, and grant that, hav- 
ing a competency, we may be content and thankful. 
Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God 
imequally dealt, if we see another abound in riches, 
when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys which 



CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 59 

keep those riches, hang often so heavily at the rich 
man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and 
restless nights, even where others sleep quietly. We 
see but the outside of the rich man's happiness : few 
consider him to be like the silk-worm, that, when she 
seems to play, is at the same time spinning her own 
bowels, and consuming herself. And this many rich 
men do, loading themselves with corroding cares to 
keep what they have already got. Let us, therefore, 
be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, 
for a quiet conscience." 

There is, my Lysias, a negative unhappiness which 
is greater than that which may be consciously present 
and positive ; by which is meant, that the pleasures of 
a mere man of the market are so insignificant and mean 
when compared with higher joys of which he wots little 
or nothing, that should consciousness of the distinc- 
tion come to him, he might not but be horrified in per- 
ceiving that his fare had been husks and slops, and his 
assumptions simple and ridiculous presumptions. Shall 
this be made more plain if we consider that large class 
of human sybarites who know nothing of exhilaration 
aside from animal excitements? What, to the soul- 
less bodies of such, are the refinements of the higher 
aesthetics? What know these of gurgling waters ex- 
cept as of a something that quenches thirst? Or what 
to such are earth-paintings and sky-reflections ? The 
happiness of such men is as the happiness of the beast, 
which eats its fill and then rests that it n^y eat again. 

But the possession of money wealth is not neces- 
sarily the abuse of it. A shallow philosophy certainly 
is that which reviles as of evil in itself an instrument 



6o CONCERNING QUIET HOURS, 

capable of so great good ; but never overmuch or too 
continuously is gold to be reviled when it is perceived 
that, wall-like, a man takes of his metal and with it 
builds himself into a dungeon whereby from him are 
shut out the fragrant things of a higher living. A sug- 
gestive saying was it of Aristotle's, ** that some men are 
as stingy as if they expected to live forever, and some 
as extravagant as if they expected to die immediately." 

Who, knowing the wealth of the poor, will not utter 
an apostrophe to Poverty? Yes, delightful goddess, we 
too may speak an oblation in thy ear; for is it not in 
indifference to wealth that to-day the sweet sounds and 
sights of nature are ours? that to-day, and a part of 
every day, we follow thy delightful leadings, and are 
recreated with thy everlasting freshness? Is it not that 
being thy votaries we are saved from worthlessly en- 
cumbering the ground ? that we are made producers, 
and adders to the comfort of men? O beautiful 
Nymph, wearer of russet garments which do but con- 
ceal glories lying beneath, whence but from thee come 
patience and love and compassion ? Whence but from 
thee are sublime poems built in enduring granite, are 
words made everlasting through steel-carved pages, are 
notes breathing in soul-inspiring melody? and whence 
but from thee come oil and wine, honey and frankin- 
cense ? Heaven-born goddess, receive our oblations. 

It is better to be absolutely poor than to be abso- 
lutely rich ; it is best to be neither : in such conclu- 
sions rests the experience of the world's knowledge; 
and nothing is there so trustworthy as the common ex- 
perience. Yet in society, as society now is, the indi- 
vidual may scarcely depend on himself to understand 



CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 6 1 

this, for even as so real a thing as the sun may be shut 
out by clouds and made to appear as though it were 
not, so may a man grope a lifetime in regions of clouds 
even while all the time a sun is shining, — even while 
all the time he is surrounded by that which he sees not. 
How many, with slippered feet resting upon silken 
stools, the market and its allurements shut out, the 
curtain drawn, will heed daintily, and find savor in, 
the quaint hints of such as good Izaak Walton ! How 
the fettered hands long to bait the hook and throw 
the line, and how the jaded ear drinks greedily in the 
unwonted discourse about things simple and natural — 
things once known, alas ! now, gone with the tide of a 
past. 

" Lord, who hath praise enough? nay, who hath any? 
None can express thy works but he that knows them ; 
And none can know thy works, they are so many, 
And so complete, but only he that owes them." 

A fisher-boy, rod upon shoulder, and basket in 



hand, seeking the stream where the trout lies under the 
meadow-bank. The stripling, neglectful of "down- 
sinking cork," dreaming dreams as he sleeps amid the 
fragrance of a hill-side violet-bed. The youth, pen- 
sive and lusty, telling to trees and birds the story of a 
love — the story of a love that now, alas, is in a grave 
which the storms of twenty winters have beaten flat with 
the neighboring sward. 

To-night, flowing through the valleys of mem- 
ory, is a stream along the banks of which lie halcyon- 
eggs, — to-night the time-fettered man, shackles, locks, 
and all, is back in the Eleusis from which two-score 

6 



62 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 

years agone he wandered in search of a golden fleece ; 
to-night a Proserpine has escaped from Pluto, and the 
earth is aglow with fresh flowers and grasses. Come 
back, thou Past, oh, come back, but in thy coming 
lose not to us the experience by which alone we can 
understand thee. 

With what an odor of fragrant invitation, and with 
what voice of allurement, does Nature beckon to the 
man who wanders within her sacred influences ! Who, 
with a Wilson, shall strap knapsack to his back and 
not find each hill an altar wherefrom ascends incense? 
each valley a tabernacle in which nature, animate and 
inanimate, shows forth God's worthiness? 

" O lovely scenes ! 
That sink to nothing all the works of pride ! 
What are the piles that puny mortals rear, 
Their temples, towers, however great or fair, 
Their mirrors, carpets, tapestry, and state. 
The nameless toys that Fashion's fools create, 
To this resplendent dome of earth and sky. 
Immensely stretched ! immeasurably high ! 
Those yellow forests, tinged with glowing red, 
So rich around in solemn grandeur spread. 
Where, here and there, in lazy columns rise 
The woodman's smoke, like incense, to the skies ! 
This heaven-reflecting lake, smooth, clear, profound, 
And that primeval peace that reigns around ! 
As well may worms compare with souls divine, 
As Art, O Nature ! match her works with thine." 

What dreams have men ! To-morrow, ay, to-morrow, 
the eyes are to open upon a new world. Ledgers are 
to be crammed away, tills are to be locked up, care 

is to be shut within the shop and — to-morrow the 

man — unconsciously grown old — is to amble forth, — 



CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 63 

to be laughed at and mocked by the boys of the play- 
ground ; to-morrow the old man is to wonder because 
he finds no fragrance in roses, no music in rippling 
streams, no pictures in the sky ! 

A time is there for everything; a time when blos- 
soms are pregnant with fruit, a time when the fruit is 
born and gone ; a time when streams murmur quaint 
songs all day long, a time when the waters are turned 
into ice; a time when the horizon shows grand pic- 
tures, God-painted, a time when the sky is leaden. It 
is wisdom, my Lysias, to live in the things of one's day 

and not trust too fully the morrow for to whom is 

it that in the belongings of a to-morrow are found the 

things of to-day? the meaning of each day is in that 

day, and not in the hours of any other. 

How like unto threadbare suits grow men — some 
men ! neither is left to the woof strength nor gloss. 
" But we go on," as says the visitor to the North Road 
cottage, *Sve go on in our clockwork routine, from 
day to day, and can't make out or follow the changes. 
They — they're a metaphysical sort of thing. We — we 
haven't leisure for it. We — we haven't courage. One 
don't see anything, one don't hear anything, one don't 
know anything; that's the fact. We go on taking 
everything for granted, and so we go on, until what- 
ever we do, good, bad, or indifferent, we do from 
habit. Habit is all I shall have to report, when I am 
called upon to plead to my conscience on my death- 
bed. 'Habit,' says I; 'I was deaf, dumb, blind, and 
paralytic, to a million of things, from habit.' " 
* Let him plead habit who will, but habit saves not 
from that which is its result. He who is habit-blind 



64 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 

goes into the ditch, and he who is habit-wise escapes 
the fall. A pitiable sight is it to see a man nose-led, 
an invisible ** Habit" carrying him away from all that 
should go to make up the fulness of a true life; no sun 
for his morning, no moon for his evening, but the dust 
of a treadmill to-day, to-morrow, and all days, — dust 
at the beginning, dust at the ending, dust interme- 
diately, — from dust back to dust, — physically, morally, 
intellectually. 

Ill-judged is it in a gray-haired that he anticipate 
the coming back of passed-away times ; drink water 
while the spring runs, else will the freshness never be 
found by thee ; set thy cup aside until the morrow, if 
so be it please thee, but when thou returnest be not 
disappointed in finding that thirsty nature has con- 
sumed the draught, — for that drinks which is athirst : 
then, O man ! say, of what use is the cup to thee, — 
even though it be golden ? 

" See how in his head only, hope still lingers, 
Who evermore to empty rubbish clings, 
With greedy hands grubs after precious things, 
And leaps for joy when some poor worm he fingers." 

'' That I may show the whole world," says Jean Paul, 
*'that we ought to value little joys more than great 
ones ; the night-gown more than the dress-coat ; that 
Plutus's heaps are worth less than his handfuls, and that 
not great, but little good haps, can make us happy." 
*' Have you known," asks Montaigne, 'Miow to medi- 
tate and manage your life? you have done a great deal 
more than he who has composed books." 

A great thing is it indeed to know how to meditate 



CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 65 

and how to manage life, and of great wisdom must it 
be, for few are found who have learned the art. " The 
child has beaten me in simplicity," cries the son of 
Tresius, as he beholds a boy drink water from his 
hands and take up lentils with a crust of bread \ and in 
the lesson did the philosopher deem himself the richer, 
inasmuch as cup and spoon were not longer felt to be 
necessities. The most valuable thing a man can spend, 
taught Theophrastus, is time ; and a favorite saying was 
it with Aristotle, that, in Understanding, we do, with- 
out being commanded, what others do from fear of 
the laws. 

It is, my Lysias, that we enjoy the solitude of the 
wood-side and streamlet, because that here, divested 
and freed from cares and anxieties, we find ourselves 
in natural relation with that of which we are a part ; 
because that here is little and not much ; because that 
here, management being easy, we find ourselves man- 
agers. Look you, O my Scholar, through the breaks 
in the branches which wave above us ; what a sense of 
singleness is there in the great sky ! how immeasura- 
ble the calm that falls from it into the heart! Surely 
amid such influences, if anywhere, is a man's life to be 
measured at its proper value. 

And is it a fair exchange to give up variety for inan- 
ity, the sights and sounds of nature for the cares and 
perplexities of trade, the free and open outlook into life 
for the glass and the bench of the artisan ? Which of 
the trio, Cephalus the grandfather, Lysanias the father, 
or Cephalus the son, lived wisest? — he who gathered, 
he who squandered, or he who preserved ? And where 
is the pertinence in which is to be used the wealth of 
6* 



66 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 

the dwellers at Pirseus? *' What, think you, Cephalus, 
is the greatest advantage that you have derived from 
being wealthy?" 

And what answers Cephalus? 

*'If I mention it," he replies, **I shall perhaps get 
few persons to agree with me. Be assured, Socrates, 
that when a man is nearly persuaded that he is going 
to die, he feels alarmed and concerned about things 
which never affected him before. Till then he has 
laughed at those stories about the departed, which tell 
us that he who has done wrong here must suffer for it 
in the other world ; but now his mind is tormented 
with a fear that these stories may possibly be true. 
And, either owing to the infirmity of old age, or be- 
cause he is now nearer to the confines of the future 
state, he has a clearer insight into those mysteries. 
However that may be, he becomes full of misgiving 
and apprehension, and sets himself to the task of cal- 
culating and reflecting whether he has done any wrong 
to any one. Hereupon, if he finds his life full of unjust 
deeds, he is apt to start out of sleep in terror, as chil- 
dren do, and he lives haunted by gloomy anticipations. 
But if his conscience reproaches him with no injustice, 
he enjoys the abiding presence of sweet Hope, ' that 
kind nurse of old age,' as Pindar calls it. For indeed, 
Socrates, those are beautiful words of his, in which he 
says of the man who has lived a just and holy life, 
'Sweet Hope is his companion, cheering his heart, the 
nurse of old age, — Hope, which more than aught else 
steers the capricious will of mortal men.' There is 
really a wonderful truth in the description. And it is 
this consideration, as I hold, that makes riches chiefly 



CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 67 

valuable, I do not say to everybody, but at any rate to 
the good. For they contribute greatly to our preserva- 
tion from even unintentional deceit or falsehood, and 
from that alarm which would attend our departure to 
the other world, if we owed any sacrifice to a god, or 
any money to a man. They may have other uses. 
But after weighing them all separately, Socrates, I am 
inclined to consider this service as anything but the 
least important which riches can render to a wise and 
sensible man." * 

Yet, my Lysias, would there not seem to be greater 
wisdom in him who abstains from debt-making ? for in 
the abstaining, being debt-clear, is he not kept both 
from the owing of money and the temptation to deceit ? 
and as with the lyrist, it must be felt of all, that *' Hope 
is the nurse of old age," so must it also be that he who 
accumulates the largest store of hope is seen to gather 
to himself the truest treasury of riches. Now, to gather 
of Hope is to glean of that which nature plants, and 
not of ourselves to sow too freely ; for if a man live in 
the fashion of nature he lives necessarily in the laws 
of his entities, and thus, being in accord with that 
which is the true direction of life, he may not pos- 
sibly find himself owing debts, either of gold or of 
conscience. 

With not less earnestness, Lysias, is a man to seek 
the mien of his good than has a Polemarchus sought 
the meaning of justice \ for if to understand what is just 
be greater gain than the finding of many pieces of gold, 
shall it not be affirmed of good — which of itself em- 

* Plato's Republic, Book First. 



68 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 

braces justice — that to discover and to practice it is to 

secure what, in the truest sense, is wealth indeed? 

Or, is a man the rather to act with Thrasymachus, and 
esteem that in such search he settles alone some insig- 
nificant question, and not a principle on which life is 
to be conducted that it shall lead to the most profitable 
existence ? 

Let it be seen, my Scholar, that in our own influ- 
ence we honor not overmuch that which is not of 
philosophy, for it has well been discerned and pro- 
nounced by Plato, that what is honored at any time 
is practiced, and what is dishonored is neglected, so 
that when wealth and the wealthy are (over) honored in 
a state, virtue and the virtuous sink in estimation. 
Yet, while we pay our honors to philosophy, let us not 
fail to understand what is meant by a philosopher, and 
not attempt to elevate in the public estimation that 
crude set so aptly described by Adeimantus as ''men 
full of eccentricity and uselessness," for such as these 
serve but to breed contempt, not only for themselves, 
but — what is of consequence — for that which, unjustly, 
they are supposed to represent. 

He who has attained to philosophy is not to be be- 
guiled and deceived by gloss and tinsel ; it is that such 
have learned the distinction between brass and gold. 
So it comes that what glitters is twice scanned before 
being brought to the balance. To be rich consists in 
wanting. Who so poor — in the wealth sense — as he 
who finds nothing left to desire ? Culleth not the Baron 
Verulam wisely when he selects the Roman word " im- 
pedimenta," applying it to estate as being the baggage 
of virtue, — that something which may not be left be- 



CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 69 

hind, or spared, yet which — in the care it demandeth 
— hindereth progress and not unfrequently causeth the 
losing or disturbing of the victory? 

Poor, in the wealth sense ; for as extremes ever 

are found to meet, so it is that he who has, or may 
command, everything he craves, is no richer than he 
who has nothing, as to the latter belongs hope born of 
a future — which is the truest riches — a possession gone 
from the first. See the beautiful image of the charming 
and rich Sericula; silks of choicest texture literally bur- 
den the child, and in their Etruscan settings diamonds 
and precious jewels glitter from ears and fingers. Yet 
has the pretty Phidia been made very poor, for it has 
come that neither jewels nor dresses, phaetons nor 
ponies, have power to add a new or a fresh sensation ; 
and so, even in the first blush of a blooming girlhood, 
the child is found enmiyee and distraite. 

How unlike is Phidia to the daughter of Ennea ! 
comely, fresh damsel, where are we to seek her but in 
the dell where gather the butterflies? or in the rustic 
swing? or atop the gate-post which gives entrance to 
Lysander's drive? or astraddle some high-up limb 
which yields her dainty harvest? or busy at work 
among hills of sand left by the diggers on the stream's 
bank ? or knee-deep, wading in the waters? or chasing, 
hair flowing, and with wild halloo, the colt that plays 
his pranks in the pasture-field ? What knows the glad- 
eyed birdling of ennui ? — as little as she knows of ves- 
pertine or matinee, — and as little will she be apt to learn 
of the first for years as the wisdom of her training will 
surely withhold from her young age unsatisfying excite- 
ments which might serve alone to rob her of the wealth 



yo CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 

in which she is now so rich, yet having nothing of like 
value to give in return. 

Not to know of superfluous things is not to lack 
them ; to keep one's self separated from unnecessary 
indulgences is the same as neither needing nor desiring 
such things. So if it be that the flower may take the 
place of the ribbon, the dewdrop the place of the dia- 
mond, wherein is the distinction as a true wealth is con- 
cerned ? Is not a flower quite as pretty as a ribbon ? 
And what stone has ever outshone the glisten of a dew- 
drop as first touches it the light of the morning sun ? 

Two sides has life, wisely asserts Alcmseon ; surely 
it is the part of wisdom that a man seek to live as 
continuously as possible on the bright side. Three 
sons had Hegesistratus \ of the trio was Democritus. 
When the estate of the father was divided, this wisest 
of the three took the smallest portion, because it was in 
money. Despising luxury, even as he despised fame, 
the boy spent his all in the study of that beautiful 
world which his own grand nature so fully qualified him 
to appreciate. Ah ! my Scholar, how truly would the 
Abderitan have enjoyed this quiet stream-side; he who 
sought the stillness of tombs that he might get away 
from the confusions of men ; he who garnered to him- 
self so much of virtue that men changed their laws 
in order that honors might be paid the mortal who 
could recite the glories of his "Great World" — of 
that great world scarcely better known by the mass of 
human kind than by the brutes ! Too rich a thing is 
life, my Lysias, to be thrown away or held cheap ! A 
wonderful turning about would that be which opened 
eyes should direct. Shall we, my Scholar, waste of 



CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 71 

these privileged hours because that even our own con- 
junctiva bears the nictitating membrane? rather let us 
tear away the sight-covering film, that we may gain to 
ourselves understanding of things as they are, and not 
as they are 'seen through a cloud. 

He who seeks solitude finds waiting for him God 

and the demi-gods. He who searches after the 

dryads will find them, if he look long enough, in the 
swaying willow-branches ; in the creeping things under 
the leaves; *' in the smooth holly's green eternity." 



The passions, gently smooth'd away, 



Sink to divine repose, and love and joy 
Alone are waking." 

Only in the stillness of quiet ways and places is it 
that the language of trees and stones, of crawling vines 
and running brooks, is to be heard by mortals ; and so 
all-alluring and so enticing are the sweet words spoken 
by these inanimate things, that, as has been well re- 
marked by Zimmermann, a man must have heed to him- 
self if he lose not all relish for every other pleasure and 
be brought not to the neglect of every employment 
which tends to interrupt the gratification of the en- 
chanting propensity for the language to which one 

listens in solitude is the undefiled speech of God ; what 
else, my Lysias, might come to the mortal, in hearken- 
ing to such discourse, but ravishment? It is, that soul 
communes with soul. 

To look at Life truly and well is to esteem it from 
that distant stand-point which has in it no note of the 
little things about which men fret, and over which a 
present is but too commonly all frittered away. How 



72 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 

insignificant is seen to be the trouble of yesterday ! how 
trifling the vexations of the year passed away ! Yet be- 
cause that these troubles and th-ese vexations were not 
interpreted when present, man robbed his treasury of 
its brightest coins that immunity might be bought of 
that which, when inquired into and understood, is felt 
to be of no more consequence than a scare-crow. A 
quaint thing is it that a common crow shows greater 
penetration than does a man, for the bird leaves not 
the grain because of the flutter of a bunch of rags. 

It is, my Scholar, that Vaucluse is not alone six 
leagues from Avignon, but that it is everywhere that 
Avignon is not. Might not a Petrarch find in this 
quiet wood inspiration for his canzoni as well as foun- 
dation for his dwelling-place? If the Song of Laura 
be in the ear of the De Sade, is there not here music to 
which the gods themselves delight to hearken ? What 
sweeter retirement than this might have offered to the 
Poet the consolations of its solitude ? What constancy 
is seen more constant than this found in the loves of 
the dryads ? Do not the willow-branches toy eternally 
with the water? And do not the holly-berries grow 
brighter as the winter approaches? The dryads are 
ever young, and the running stream is immortal. 



IV. 



CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE OF 
UNQUIET HOURS. 

" Lord, would men let me alone, 
What an over-happy one 

Should I think myself to be ! 
Might I in this desert place, 
Which most men in discourse disgrace, 

Live but undisturbed and free ! 
Here, in this despised recess, 

Would I, maugre Winter's cold 
And the Summer's worst excess. 

Try to live out to sixty full years old ; 
And all the while, 

Without an envious eye 
On any thriving under Fortune's smile. 

Contented live, and then contented die I" 

IF men would only let one alone ! But men will not 
let one alone. Also are there a multitude of things 
besides men that will not let one alone : a man's tem- 
perament will not let him alone ; his necessities will 
not let him alone; complications, if he be fool-hardy 
enough to enter upon them, will not let him alone ; 
disease will not let him alone; and if, in ignorance 
and in misunderstanding of the laws of life, he accus- 
D 7 73 



74 CONCERNING THE Al^OIDANCE 

torn himself to the artificial requirements of perverted 
appetites, it may chance to happen that he find his 
liberty of action so interfered with that in cap and 
apron he be thrust into his own kitchen, — a scullion 
to the imperative demands of a merciless taskmaster. 

But heed, Lysias : just how much a man is to find 

himself let alone, or how much interfered with, depends 
on himself. One's boot is to have its polish preserved 
by being kept out of the gutter. 

It is as much a fact as it should be a matter for won- 
derment, that while the sensibility of men recoils at 
the idea of a *'hair shirt," it is the exception with 
the race where such character of garment is not most 
eagerly sought after and assumed ; and this under the 
hallucination, apparently, that a particular one solicited 
has nothing of the prickle in it, but that both warp and 
woof are silken. Even stranger, perhaps, than the 
putting on of such a robe is the continuous wearing of 
one ; men enduring day after day the stinging and the 
smarting, yet coming never to vsee the cause of the 
worrying and goading under which they suffer ; going 
down even unto the grave with bowed heads and sore 
backs, crying and groaning under what is oftentimes 
deemed a burden too grievous to be borne, and yet, 
to all appearance, as unconscious as an Anencephalus 
that in so simple a thing as the change of a habit is to 
be found freedom from that which so afflicts and dis- 
tresses them. 

No, Lysias, it is not alone one's fellows that will not 
let him be; much rather is it a man's self that afflicts 
himself: each insists on a hair shirt, and deems himself 
kept from his privileges until he gets one wrapped 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. 75 

about him ; the laborer will strive to be master, and 
the master will strive to go on until he sinks under the 
weight and the worriment of a wealth of hair shirts, 
in which he delights to exhibit his cut and flayed body. 

Heed ! It is the office of philosophy to distinguish 
between hair and silk : a true philosopher has never yet 
been met with having on his back a hair shirt. 

It is with men who have wisdom, Lysias, as it was 
with Socrates when the sage admitted the goodness yet 
recognized an unfitness in the defence prepared for him 
by thy namesake the Athenian orator. " It is a very 
fine speech, Lysias," he said, "but it is not suitable 
for me, being the speech of a lawyer rather than of a 
philosopher." "But how," replied Lysias, " if it is a 
good speech, should it not be suitable to you?" "Just 
as," answered Socrates, "fine clothes and handsome 
shoes would not be suitable to me." 

To comprehend the law of fitness is to come to the 
possession of a most desirable kind of knowledge. 
Heed ! If one would have himself famous, if he would 
be worldly successful, if he would find himself able to 
minister in satiety to the demands of the body, if he 
would be praised by men for stability and be admired 
by them for a fixedness in purpose, — the secret of the 
success lies in polishing knife-blades ; or, better still, 
in giving one's self to the business of pointing pins. 

It seems a very mean office, Lysias; but pointing pins 
is the business of men in general ; and this, or the 
polishing of knife-blades, is considered by most people 
the only office to which one is justified in devoting 
himself. Who is it that we know that is not hard at 
work in one or the other of these occupations ? And 



76 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

where is the man who is ever found to raise his eyes 
from the work ? Ah, Lysias, thou noble-born and 
gentle-bred, what is to save thy fledging wings from 
the scissors-blades of the insignificant ? 

Come, my Scholar, we will not at least be found 
wanting in an understanding of the things that most 
immediately concern us : if it must be that our shoul- 
ders are to receive the gold-woven, poisoned garment 
of Medea, we will carry beneath the robe the so little- 
known antidote, — if this we may come at ; or, if it is 
to be learned that pointing pins is the only occupation 
which may worthily employ the lifetime of a God- 
imaged man, let me help thee find a bench, that thou 
get to the work as speedily as possible. 

But the Talker with skin-dressers found that 

when the nostrils were elevated there were other odors 
besides the stench of decaying ofl'al; and while, because 
of the discovery, no leather-seller was found tempted 
to leave his shop, yet had Socrates a lesson which, 
when utilized, yielded him the fresher airs of the Acro- 
polis and the Piraeus. Let us, Lysias, learn too, if we 
may, the road that leads to the Port ; or, better still, 
let us not forget the beautiful images found by Prax- 
iteles in the quarries at Pentelicus. 

To live comfortably, one needs to consider the place 
in which one finds himself. Thus, if Posidonius, with 
whom we sojourn, asserts wealth and high health to be 
good, let us not, with Hecaton, deny too strenuously 
that pleasure is good because that there be disgraceful 
pleasures ; and let us not, when we rest with Chrysip- 
pus, prate over-freely of the Orestes of Euripides, for 
such prating makes neither better nor worse the tragedy, 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. 77 

while yet it may not fail in bringing to us odium from 
those who affirm that if the gods use logic it is doubtless 
that of Chrysippus. Not, however, is it meant by this 
that a man is to be all things to all men ; on the con- 
trary, only that man walks in uprightness who is steady 
to an end and purpose. Yet is it seen that one finds 
himself able to get along the faster does he not stop 
too frequently to combat follies which he may not 
mend, and he who grows aggressive loses only too 
soon the influence retained by him who ventures alone 
to be suggestive ; for meant Antisthenes, think you, to 
applaud or to treat lightly the policy of an evil habit 
when, condoling with the threatened adulterer, he ex- 
claimed, '* Oh, unhappy man ! how much danger could 
you have avoided for a single obol !" And put not 
Diogenes much of wisdom in his speech when, learn- 
ing that the Athenians had voted that Alexander was 
Bacchus, he exclaimed simply, "Vote, too, that I am 
Serapis!" Was not Copernicus wiser than Galileo? 
a Descartes of greater worldly acumen than a Spinoza? 
It is scarcely to be denied, Lysias, that persistence in 
the use of a single word was the explanation of all 
the wretchedness that an unsympathizing age heaped 
upon the God-intoxicated Jew; and it would have 
been quite as easy, and many times more effective, 
had the Enthusiast said '* Noumenon" in place of 
''Substance." 

A hypocrite, thou sayest, was Copernicus to his 
highest convictions. Let a man speak as there is in 
him to teach. 

Good, Lysias ; but men who desire to get along on 
easy terms with their fellows give not offence in their 
7* 



78 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

speaking, save from necessity ; not with the Pythago- 
reans are they accustomed 

" If by chance they see 
A private individual abroad, 
To try what power of argument he has, 
How he can speak and reason, and then bother him 
With strange antitheses and forced conclusions, 
Errors, comparisons, and magnitudes. 
Till they have filled and quite perplexed his mind." 

And then, again, Modesty is a jewel which is 



becoming to every complexion ; and never is it to be 
forgotten that a man may only see according to the 
lobes which receive the impressions of his retinae. Who 
might apprehend the subjectiveness of Matter, save him 
that has the sense of Apprehension ?* or who under- 
stand severalty in oneness, but him that has Soul ? A 
learned man is to speak his lore only among his peers, 
and this for the double reason that either he will find 
himsdf misunderstood and perhaps laughed at, or 
otherwise his erudition shall serve alone to confound 
and confuse. 

There are two things, my Lysias, which it well be- 
comes the seeker after true living to consider : the first 
of these being Character, the second. Reputation. 

Character belongs to that which makes its impression 
through example, not through words ; for never has a 
man grown better himself or assisted to make others 
better by an austerity of tongue which finds naught 
but ill words for ill doers. And then again, my 
Lysias, who in fault-finding may be sure that he him- 
self is not in fault ? for of a truth may it not be that 

*■ See " Two Thousand Years After." 



OF UNQUIET HOURS, 79 

the virtue of one is the virtue of all; and as this none 
better than a wise man knows, so he who has learned 
of the fallacies of judgment hesitates long before pro- 
nouncing either on error or truth. To be presumptuous 
is not only to be of ill repute among one's fellows, 
but is, of necessity, to be ignorant and weak ; for was it 
not he whom the Delphian oracle pronounced the wisest 
of men whose constant asseveration was that "that 
alone which he knew was, that he knew nothing" ? and 
was the greatness of Antisthenes less conspicuous in 
the modesty of the answer which directed him who had 
asked what a man could do to show himself upright and 
honorable, **to attend to those who understand the 
subject and learn from them to shun bad habits' ' ? Shall 
Zeno, who thanks the gods that the shipwreck which 
has destroyed his goods has left him his mind, too 
hastily find fault with Hyperides, who wins a cause for 
Phryne through the irresistible arguments of her beau- 
tiful person ? and shall the stoic condemn Met^^aus be- 
cause the blood-stained sword grows powerless against 
the divine beauty of Troy's exquisite Helen ? Was it 
with uneducated judgment that Theaetetus perceived 
that a man might not boast himself on his ancestors, 
*'as that, by the myriad of ages of succession, each 
must have had grandsires among whom there must have 
been an innumerable multitude of rich and poor, kings 
and slaves, barbarians and Greeks ? And to refer one's 
origin to Hercules, son of Amphitryon, is absurd from 
its littleness, and is to be laughed at, as such seem un- 
able to compute, and so rid themselves of the vaunting 
of a silly mind, that the five-and-twentieth ancestor 
from Amphitryon, and the fiftieth from him, was such 



8o CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

as fortune happened to make him. In all these things, 
therefore, such a man is ridiculed by the multitude, 
partly from bearing himself haughtily, and partly from 
not knowing what is at his feet." 

Again, Lysias, is it not to be accounted virtue to an 
ill man in that he keeps others from evil through the 
disgust engendered of his loathsome traits ? And who 
shall say this nay, if in the bad of one is found the 
good of two? — a paradox, truly, yet who shall fairly 
gainsay it? 

Turn we now for a moment to the thing known as 
reputation. He who would be reputed wise must be 
content to be ignorant, for, as it is impossible for a 
truly wise man to be aught else than humble, — and 
humble does a man grow in proportion as he grows 
wise, — so without pretension shall a man attain to 
little present fame ; for hath it not been wisely written 
that ** it is well to be something besides a coxcomb, 
for our own sake as well as that of others ; but to be 
born wholly without this faculty or gift of Providence, 
a man had better have had a stone tied about his neck 
and been cast into the sea" ? 

And what was it that Touchstone said? *'If you 

have not seen the court, your manners must be naught; 
and if your manners are naught, you must be damned !" 

It is then, Lysias, for a man to decide which he shall 
most enjoy and most prefer, reputation or character; 
and this is the same as saying, the world or one's self ; 
or, if one would have both, he shall stand a best chance 
in coming to the possession through an understanding 
and reconciliation of the distinctions that exist between 
them. 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. 8 1 

" In peace there's nothing so becomes a man 
As modest stillness and humility ; 
But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 
Then imitate the action of the tiger ; 
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage ; 
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect, 
Let it pry through the portage of the head, 
Like the brass cannon ; let the brow o'erwhelm it 
As fearfully as doth a galled rock 
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, 
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean." 

Living implies necessarily reputation and character; 
living is the making or the unmaking of one's self. 
The poet is wrong: that which grows '* modest still- 
ness" may not breed the *' action of the tiger;" for 
who that has ascended into the empyrean shall descend 
to snarl and growl with brutes ? Personal vanity is 
incompatible with the great and the ideal, and it would 
seem that one is to elect whether he be mighty or 
little, God-like or brute-like. 

But, thou askest, is it well for a man that he grow 
out of his human nature and attributes ? 

This, Lysias, is not what is meant; for a highest 
wisdom directeth that each and everything doeth best 
when it fulfils the oflEices of its intention ; but, man 
being of a compound capability, the soul — if he be 
possessed of one — is not to be made a minister to the 
body ; this is indeed degrading a noble office. 

Thou repeatest the oft-told saying, that ''the flesh 
is apt to be found stronger than the soul." 

Nothing of the body, my Lysias, grows and prospers 
but as blood is given to the part. Hath not he who 
hammers, biceps that are like unto the iron of his 

D* 



82 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

anvil? and were not the calf-muscles of Jatus, who 
danced, a marvel to him who dissected the leg ? how 
else than through exercise has grown the deform- 
ing passion of Zuras? The soul of a man it is, my 
scholar, which is the functioning agent to highest 
offices: give this the excess of pabulum, and baser 
organs wither and dry up, even as shrivel the things 
of the field in absence of showers. 

But, thou askest, may a man will such direction of 
his blood ? 

What, Lysias, if one eat a meal of meat and then 
walk, directs he not the blood from the stomach to the 
legs? and, while in action, is his meal not left undi- 
gested? does one ponder problems without calling this 
same blood to the brain ? or may a man use mightily 
his arms without having the excess in these organs? 
Accept that it is the case that one may give or withhold 
as he resolves, and that he who wills to give the fuel of 
the blood to the offices of his higher nature grows and 
advances into noble things ; while, on the contrary, 
he who, like unto Zuras, gives the excess to the pas- 
sions of the corporeal body descends equally into the 
low and mean. Zuras himself it is who at times per- 
ceives the weed-raggedness of his soil, and wonders 
that his ground bears no fruit ; but did ever one cul- 
tivate a field of grain with half the pertinacity with 
which these weeds are pandered to, and not have as 
much of good as has Zuras of evil ? 

Reputation may be true, or it may be false ; not unapt 
is it to be the latter, for it is a something external to 
the possessor ; but character, as has been happily re- 
marked, " is the spiritual atmosphere of a man, and it 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. 83 

is as inseparable from him as is the fragrance of a rose 
from the rose itself. In the glance of the eye, in the 
tones of the voice, in mien and gesture, character dis- 
closes itself. No one shall mistake Circe for Diana." 
Reputation may be made by seeming, character can 
only be in being ; for is it not observed, even by the 
least observant, that as is a man's life so does his face 
come to show what he is, and to express his nature? 

But, thou suggestest, man may cheat himself of 
pleasure, which nature has created for him, by being 
over-fastidious, or by living in a false estimate of duty. 

Have it as thou wilt, Lysias ; yet, let a man say what 
he please and do of himself what he elects, he cannot 
run counter to the Lex Dei without incurring a penalty 
which proportions itself to the extent of his error. A 
natural law is there, which is always right, and which, 
of itself considered, leads a man never into error ; but 
to live in society is not to live in natural law, and ever 
has it been found, and ever, I conceive, will it be found, 
that man seems to heed best the Vox Dei as he is found 
understanding and heeding the vox populi. Rest 
assured that that which is spoken by the common ex- 
perience concerning matters in general is that which 
one does best in obeying. 

It is, Lysias, that in nature there is no law more per- 
sistent than that of compensation : who cheats another 
cheats himself, who murders another murders himself; 
and the cheating and the murder are immediate, — not 
less that which is had than that which is done. 

The temptations of the body, it is to be repeated, 
are things fully and entirely of temperament, and tem- 
perament is a thing of birth and construction, and 



84 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

signifies what manner of action shall be the habits of 
the natural man. A man does not make his tempera- 
ment, — but he may direct its offices. 

For a man to live in law is nothing more nor less 
than that he live in the experience of a common good, 
let such law be moral or statute ; and while there may 
well arise occasions on which a law may seem to bear 
harshly and heavily, yet will a wise man cheerfully 
endure the apparent evil for the reason of the good 
which lies behind. Too much is not to be condemned 
that crucifixion of the flesh which finds not compensa- 
tion in an appreciation of higher pleasure secured by 
the crucifixion ; such dolor belongs not to the ways 
of nature, and he is but a weak and timid man who, 
through fear of some distant ill, denies himself that 
which constitutes a heaven in the present. It is, my 
Lysias, to be taught that pleasure is the fulness of 
living, and that he acts with truest wisdom who gets 
the most out of Time without considering that un- 
appreciated thing so loosely styled Eternity. I do 
commend to thee, my Lysias, that thou enjoy that 
which is most enjoyable ; and if, perchance, it shall be 
felt by thee after trial and experience that the pleasures 
of the body are of truer import than are those of the 
soul, — why, I as warmly commend thee to hold to the 
former and eschew the latter, being satisfied that this 
I would incline to do of myself, having, as the object, 
to get the most out of life.* 

A Truth would it seem to be that Duty is prated too 
much in the ears of men : discharge of Duty is reputa- 

* See the Author's book entitled " Two Thousand Years After." 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. 85 

tion, not character. Law, truly understood, is pleasure, 
not duty ; for it is the office and meaning of law to 
select as its highest good that which has found in it 
the most of enjoyment; so it is that he who lives in 
law lives in the highest pleasuie, — as the meaning of 
such highest pleasure has been worked out through the 
misses, the follies, and the successes of the men of his 
time and generation, — and in accepting law, as man 
finds it, the individual comes at once to the good and 
escapes the evil. 

Shall we, my Lysias, compare the stone hand and 
the club arm of ages past — the slaying and the fearing 
— to the skilled fingers which to-day bring from silent 
lyres sweet sounds? Shall we not liken these mem- 
bers, stretched forth to protect and shield, to that 
peace which fears not, neither slays? 

It is found ever the case, my scholar, that the changes 
made by mankind, the persistent changes, are resultant 
of his experiences. Men have bartered the thews of 
steel for the muscles of flesh, that skill, not brute force, 
shall supply wants ; and the rude animal has been suc- 
ceeded by the intellectual man, that joy should advance 
from sensual to the sensuous. Wilt thou, Lysias, fit 
thyself, with Caravaggio, to produce great pictures ? or 
wilt thou remain Amerighi and grind colors ? 

" The youth who bathes in pleasure's tempting stream 
At well-judged intervals feels all his soul 
Nerved with recruited strength ; but if too oft 
He swims in sportive mazes through the flood, 
It chills his languid virtue." 

Vice is that which deforms and which deteriorates, 
and that which makes beautiful is the reverse of vice: 
8 



S6 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

he, then, who would be beautiful in his nature must be 
virtuous for the sake of beauty; and he who would have 
character must consider the elevating and ennobling, 
that thus he may get clear of humors which debase and 
which pull down. ** Sorrow," wisely has written a 
learned Knight of St. Michael, ''sorrow attends vice, 
for there is in it so manifest a deformity and inconve- 
nience that perhaps they are nearest right who say that 
it is begot by stupidity and ignorance. Vice leaves, 
like an ulcer in the flesh, repentance in the soul, which 
is always scratching and lacerating itself: for reason 
effaces all other griefs and sorrows, but it begets that 
of repentance, which is so much the more grievous by 
reason it springs within, as the cold and heat of fevers 
are more sharp than those which only strike upon the 
outward skin. I hold for vices — but every one accord- 
ing to its proportion — not only those which reason and 
nature condemn, but those which the opinion of men, 
though false and erroneous, has made such, if authorized 
by law and custom." 

Let the wise man accept, Lysias, that the laws of his 
day are the criterion of its virtues ; thus shall he assure 
himself that in heeding the injunctions of the laws he 
pursues the path of justice and propriety, and that in 
squaring the appetites and the inclinations of the nat- 
ural man with the directed line, he performs only that 
which is akin with the action of the simple who, to 
save being burned, draw themselves a little farther from 
the flame of the life-sustaining fire. 

Come we back now to thy question concerning a 
nobleness of disposition which finds itself above cir- 
cumstances and surroundings. 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. Sj 

It would seem to be the case that each age brings 
forth leaders whose mission it is to carry onward the 
true liberty of human actions. How it comes that 
such offices are distributed, whether by some special 
selection of which we wot not, or whether of some ac- 
cidental conformation of that engine, the brain, which 
affords the soul wider language, it is the same to us, in 
that we know that leaders are born. Are the Tables 
of the Law less an illumination that one may doubt 
that the voice which uttered them spoke from a bush 
of flame? Is the *' Zend Avesta" less of Ormuzd that 
the Persians should have received it through Zoroaster? 
Who will, with wisdom, deny that highest law of the 
age, as found in Christ, because that he understands 
not the miracle of the Deus in carne ? And is it not 
the case that always does the lesser give way to the 
greater? Might the rude Bactrian stand before the 
Persian philosopher, or Moses before the higher evolu- 
tion of the second Adam? What shall defend the 
insensibility of Epictetus against the sensibility of 
Epicurus ? Or who fail to distinguish that the Daemon 
of Socrates is of wider and fuller perception than that 
which is the judgment of Theaetetus? 

Who is to be selected for the holding of highest things 
it is not, perhaps, for mortals to say ; yet through medi- 
tation, and through the abstaining from things de- 
basing, does a man find himself brought nigher and 
nigher unto that which dispenses ; and if it be that a 
good falls not first into his own fountain, being close 
by, it comes the more quickly to his cistern, and is, in 
truth, not less his than had he been the first to receive it. 

It is a soul of good growth, my Lysias, which has 



88 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

gained to that mastery of the body by which it is able 
to direct the mortal in the rules of its surroundings; 
more and more of the God contains that temple which 
finds itself ever being lifted from its earthly foundation 
towards higher place. Ah, my Scholar, who but he 
that has attained to high things shall understand how 
much of purer and sweeter contains the air on the 
mountain than has that which carries the miasm of the 
valley ? and if it haps not to him of the valley to envy 
him of the mountain, it is only because of the stupor 
engendered of the poison he respires. **I care not," 
said the thoughtful Gascon, *' so much what I am in 
the opinion of others as what I am in my own." 

He who seeks reputation has left him but little time 
in which to make character ; so also he who works and 
strives alone for gold finds out all too soon that little by 
little has his soul been crushed out of him — if perchance 
he ever came to the possession of one — through the 
incumbrance heaped upon it. It will come, my Lysias, 
sooner or later, to every man to understand that repu- 
tation is a bauble and a fool's rattle. Is it not to be 
of reputation to have great means, to entertain many 
people, to have gay houses and fine equipages? and are 
not all such matters apt to be found hindrances to 
noble living ? are not these things to all of us as gilded 
chains which we do hug the closer even as lower and 
lower they sink us? Who is the second Monimus that, 
for his soul's health, shall find strength to break the 
bands and cast them from him ? Who, alas ! my 
Scholar, are held more firmly bound in such devil- 
forged links than thou and he who would teach thee ? 

Who that considers self too closely ever has attained, 



OF UNQUIET HOURS, gp 

or ever shall attain, to high purpose? Is man anything 
outside of the God which may be in him ? And what 
has the All-Giving, the All-Blessing, to do with lauda- 
tion ? Does not the heat of the sun fructify through 
that which it is ? scatter not the clouds their crystals 
of life ? comes not the immortal breath in the way of 
every man ? 

He who caters for reputation would seem of neces- 
sity to cater to the dishonest and the untrue. Is it 
here that is found the absence of everything but medi- 
ocrity in the annals of to-day? Who is he that shall 
be the messenger of newest truths, delivering the words 
as they are told him? Does not, man in his books twist 
and turn inspirations that, to his readers, the lines shall 
seem to smack of his own individuality ? Who har- 
angues the multitude but that he dresses the immortal 
in the garb of the mortal, speaking words which suit 
his own ends, rather than giving forth that which is 
poured for its purpose into him as into a transmitting 
vessel ? 

Self-abnegation is the first step in the way to true 
greatness. Shall wiser words be spoken than those 
which the lips of a Fichte have uttered ? *' So long as 
man yearns to be anything, God does not come to him, 
for no man can become God. So soon, however, as he 
purely and radically annihilates himself, God alone 
remains, and is all in all." . It is to be understood, 
Lysias, that mire and cleanliness are incompatible, and 
it belongs much to a man's free will to elect whether 
he be clean or dirty. ** You understand me ill," said 
Sancho XIL, King of Navarre, to those engaged in 
buckling on his armor, as they remarked his trembling ; 
D* 8* 



90 



CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 



*' for could my flesh know the danger my courage will 
presently carry it into, it would sink down to the 
ground." 

The Infinity it is, asserts Anaximander, that is the 
sum of the all ! and may the man of to-day do better 
than respect the belief of the son of Praxiadas ? 

" Ye have that virtue in you, whose just voice 
Uttereth counsel, and whose word should keep 
The threshold cf assent ; here is the source 
Whence cause of merit in you is derived, 
E'en as the affections good or ill she takes, 
Or severs, winnowed as the chaff." * 

It is the fixed and abiding belief of thy teacher, O 
my scholar, gained from insight into a nature even so 
crude and unrefined as is his own, that a man may come 
to purge himself of his body, even as a body can purge 
itself of its dross ; and that as a purged body grows 
into comfort with cleanliness, so it comes to an un- 
shackled soul to grow capable through riddance of that 
which, in a way, acts as clogs to it. And just here is 
it, my Lysias, had it been understood, should his age 
have searched for, and found, the meaning of that, to 
them, most foolish thing, — the Idealism of the miscom- 
prehended Berkeley. 

Heed, my scholar ! there exist, not less to-day than 
in the time of Epicurus, pleasures of the body and 
pleasures of the soul. And it is not less true now than 
it has been of all time that as the one or the other of 
these comes to exclusive exercise and employment, so 
that which is neglected falls into an atrophy which is 

* Dante, Purgatorio. 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. ' 91 

its destruction. It is, then, for a man to inquire of 
himself what he will be ; for even as the practice of a 
thing makes one perfect in that thing, so is it that 
cultivation induces fatness, while disuse or misdirection 
entails leanness. 

I would offer, thou sayest, a new reading of Cloyne's 
Bishop. 

If so, my scholar, good ; let us, however, take to 
ourselves the lesson contained in such a reading. In a 
sense was the Idealist right when he affirmed that it was 
not the eyes that looked ; but it is the case that some 
of these organs seem fitted for close seeing, others for 
long ; so truly is it, in like manner, that differences in 
the human soul are found. Some men are so deficient 
in the God, having cultivated alone the animal, that 
one might find it hard to discover within them anything 
divine ; others there are, on the contrary, who are 
little less than all god, and their bodies seem carried 
by the soul, rather than the soul by the body. 

" A. Eagle, why fly you o'er this holy tomb ? 
Or are you on your way, with lofty wing, 
To some bright starry domicile of the gods ? 
B. I am the image of the soul of Plato, 
And to Olympus now am borne on high : 
His body lies in his own native Attica. 

" Here in her bosom does the tender earth 
Embrace great Plato's corpse. His soul aloft 
Has ta'en its place among the immortal gods, 
Ariston's glorious son, whom all good men. 
Though in far countries, hold in love and honor, 
Remembering his pure and godlike life." 

To Berkeley ascribes Pope " every virtue under 
heaven." ** Whether this man is greater of head than 



92 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

of heart," asks a biographer, *'who shall answer?" 
And say, my Lysias, may a man come to such attain- 
ments of the soul without he at the same time grow 
out of the weaknesses of the body ? And as he who 
lives on the mountain has wider outlook than he of the 
valley, is it not to be felt that this *' Idealism" of the 
philosopher had origin in that sense of nothingness of 
the body which is recognized when comparison is made 
between soul and things corporeal? Think you, my 
scholar, that an Aristotle recognized not the outgrowth 
of the ^'soul" from the body? And have no others 
save Alexandrians come to know of that ''ecstasy" 
through which mortal becomes immortal ? Let us, as 
well we may, ascribe it to Berkeley, that in the culti- 
vation of the things of the soul he did so ennoble his 
being, did so grow out of the things of the flesh, that 
well might he come to doubt if aught had real exist- 
ence save soul. Seest thou not here character ? did not 
the face and actions of this mortal shine with a glory 
which concealed the flesh and apotheosized the man ? 
and was not this apotheosis seen of all ? 

Always look well, Lysias, before making a step, and 
trust not to any judgment unless that its conclusions be 
well and fully analyzed. Knowledge, taught Socrates, 
is to have its value estimated by its utility ; and the 
sage spoke with a meaning that the prudent man can- 
not afford to overlook. 

Whatever may be the speculations of the philoso- 
phers, and however plausible may he seem whom we 
read last, yet will we prove wise in not allowing our- 
selves to forget that ever has it proven to be the case 
that even those esteemed the most learned, as in example 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. 93 

might be mentioned a Plato and an Aristotle, are not 
unlike, because of weakness in premise and data, to 
make dissertations which, while they may look and feel 
like gold, have in them intrinsically less value than 
have structures of honest brass. Neither are we, my 
scholar, to forget the sophisms of Carneades uttered 
before Cato; nor yet overlook that it was one not less 
learned in all the sciences and philosophies of his day 
than Pyrrho, who ended his career with the injunc- 
tion, *' Let no man assert that he knows anything." 

A true knowledge, then, my Lysias, finds its nucleus 
in an understanding of the things which immediately 
surround a man : that is, he is to distinguish the mean- 
ing of things, ad mensuram, — the butter of the cow 
from the butter of antimony ; he is to understand the 
value of the money with which he trades ; to know 
that there are counterfeits in symbols — and as well in 
men ; is to understand that an umbrella is for protec- 
tion against rain, and that turned against an excess of 
sunshine it is not without its good ; that couches afford 
rest to limbs that are wearied, while sleep restores lost 
force. Knowledge puts the fork in place of the finger, 
and saves, through the use of the delicate knife, the 
rude tearing of flesh by the eye-teeth ; it engenders 
refinement by proscribing what is indelicate; points 
out straight paths in place of those which are crooked ; 
guards one against surfeit by teaching what is temper- 
ance ; keeps one in safety by exposing what is danger- 
ous ; in short, the first steps in learning pertain to the 
things of the first steps in life, — the ditch which crosses 
the road is to be reckoned before planispheres are 
invented. 



94 



CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 



To have what the world calls uncontfnon sense and 
yet to be without the common every-day judgment of 
the practical man is scarcely to be possessed of true 
wisdom. " O beloved Pan !" cried Plato, " and all ye 
other gods of this place, grant me to become beautiful 
in the inner man, and that whatever outward things I 
have may be at peace with those within. May I deem 
the wise man rich, and may I have such a portion of 
gold as none but a prudent man can either bear or 
employ." 

It is a question of first importance to almost every 
man how he shall order his efforts so as to secure to 
himself maintenance ; and this, my scholar, is a matter 
of such practical signification, that we may well be 
justified if we pause in our discourse to seriously con- 
sider upon it. The stomach-full is not the heart-full; 
let us not, Lysias, overlook this, for see you not that 
which was beneath the surface in that reply of Diogenes, 
wherein he affirmed that he would rather lick up salt 
at Athens than enjoy all luxuries with Craterus ? and 
was there not depth of wisdom in the rejoinder which 
sneered at the advice of a Plato to court Dionysius 
rather than wash vegetables in the market-place ? ** To 
know," says a writer, "when we are young, or to be 
able to do when we are old : here indeed would be 
wealth." And what may one who would get wisdom 
do better than gather from the garners of the expe^ 
rienced ? 

Of the common follies, Lysias, which experience 
exhibits as among the greatest, is to be noted one 
through which is being brought into the world more 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. 95 

of misery and misfortune than arises perhaps from all 
others : I allude to that foolish vanity which prompts 
husbandmen and sons of husbandmen to aspire to what 
they deem the more exalted station of the town ; as if, 
forsooth, he who stands behind a counter bedecked 
and befurbelowed with laces and ruffs is half so nobly 
employed as he who in the bright sunlight stands face 
to face with his Creator, and who, in unison with 
nature, lives in a law of true self-support. Can it be 
otherwise than that the broad acres are left for the 
narrow confines of the shop but at the expense of a 
step downward ? And shall what are called the learned 
professions offer wider fields in which to run the mental 
cultivator than are found in glebes and valleys which 
are as laboratories in science and pulpits wherefrom 
ever resound poems and orations ? What a weak, silly 
boy, and how much in need of leading-strings, is he 
who envies the cleaner-dressed shop-tender ! Is it not, 
my sturdy, brown-fingered lad, a miracle to raise an ear 
of golden corn ? And is it any more than thy sister 
could as easily do to measure yards of tape ? Cease, 
in thy envyings, to play the fool, and look to it that the 
greatest wisdom of the world is found to recognize the 
advantages of the farm and here to seek what elsewhere 
it has never been able to discover. 

" The smallest dust which floats upon the wind 
Bears the strong impress of the eternal mind. 
In mystery round it subtle forces roll, 
And gravitation binds and guides the whole; 
In every sand, before the tempest hurled, 
Lie locked the powers which regulate a world; 
And from each atom human thought may rise 
With might to pierce the mysteries of the skies,— 



96 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

To try each force which rules the mighty plan 
Of moving planets or of breathing man, 
And from the secret wonders of each sod 
Evoke the truths and learn the power of God." 

Also is it found that in the family relation lies a 
chief source of man's happiness. Now, in country- 
living does such relation find a highest development, 
while it is undeniably the case that the herding to- 
gether in great cities is destructive to all that is most 
beautiful and tender in such ties; and this exists in the 
fact that to the husbandman increase of family is in- 
crease of wealth, whereas to him of the town a large 
family is too often found synonymous with large dis- 
tress; this arising not in lack of natural affection, but 
in the disturbance of that law of demand and supply 
which must increase as they who consume overcount 
those who produce ; for is it not plainly seen that as 
Midas cannot nourish himself upon the gold that he 
coins, some one must of necessity raise of the things 
of the earth that excess over his own wants which shall 
serve to feed the money-stamper? and if it be that 
coiners outnumber plowmen, so want must come apace, 
attacking first him who has least to pay, and in time 
being felt by every man who himself produces not. 

What a false sight is that which sees not the under- 
surface of the purple and fine linen, as if, indeed, to be 
clean externally is necessarily to be the same all the way 
through ! The husbandman coming into the house of 
the citizen and looking little beyond the door through 
which he has entered imagines a peculiar comfort in 
all that meets his view, and in contrast with his own 
plain-furnished domicile repines at a lot the bright side 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. 



97 



of which he refuses to look upon. Let him the rather 
go forth with the master of the house, a physician is 
he perhaps, and while the night wears drearily along 
together shall they wait in the noisome court, or from 
street to street seek the embarrassing in those whose 
call they attend ; a surgeon is he perhaps, and a frac- 
tured limb that refuses to unite holds vigil about the 
sleepless pillow, with its threatenings of a sad result ; 
a merchant maybe, and angry creditors and delinquent 
debtors conspire to make hard the couch and to banish 
appetite from the table ; or perhaps the citizen is a 
speculator, and the fluctuations of his investments so 
constantly threaten reverses as to deprive him of all 
sense of solid ownership in what even the people call 
his, and engender a feverish unrest which renders it 
simply a matter of time how long he may resist his 
wear and tear. 

Not is it to be understood, my Lysias, that all mer- 
chants are bankrupt or that all speculators are unsuc- 
cessful \ yet no hesitation is to be felt in declaring that 
the life of the husbandman is most in accord with 
nature, and that that which is in such accord must have 
in it the greatest chance for happiness. 

But the husbandman is in fault in that he does not 
cultivate the sesthetic. That his home is too often a 
dreary spot and his surroundings uninviting is the fault 
neither of house nor farm, but lies rather in his own 
ill tastes and habits ; for who may be without the beau- 
tiful having evening clouds for pictures? or who have 
curtainless windows while vines grow which give not 
only pleasant shade but yield as well fragrant smells? 

There is absence of Knowledge in the full coffer and 



98 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

the empty head. What son or what daughter but shall 
be brought to an ill judgment when are perceived in a 
vocation naught but work and sleep, naught but boiled 
bacon and the refuse vegetables of the garden ? shall 
such not come naturally to envy him to whom are 
carried the fatted lamb, the fresh and succulent melon? 
A pitiable and sad sight is it to look into the rooms 
of multitudinous country-houses, created apparently 
with the double purpose of neutralizing cheerfulness 
and mingling chills with young blood ; one accustomed 
to brighter things must needs exert himself to repress 
the shudder which comes of simply passing the shut 
doors of such apartments. And how many such places 
are there which picture themselves in our associations ! 
lintels so low that one must stoop the head in passing, 
and yet of such breadth as to recall the door-jambs of 
an Egyptian tomb ; fire-dogs, supporting the cheerful 
brand only on funeral or christening occasions, glisten- 
ing in the gloom with the glare of a just dead 7ioli-ine- 
tangere; the everlasting curtains of green paper, half 
rolled and string-tied, vying with the tightly-bolted 
shutters as to which shall create greater gloom \ the 
flat seats of hair-cloth, and the coffin-like nails of a 
company-sofa, — all, all of them bought and kept for 
the ornamentation of such delectable places and the 
keeping away of God's heart-cheering mercies! 

A servant, my Lysias, may be richer than the master; 
inasmuch as to the windows of his cabin there are no 
shutters, no green-paper curtains, no fire-dogs upon his 
unpainted hearth too good for use, no parlor-seats with 
backs never out of the vertical, no sofa with coffin- 
nails, no lack of sunshine. 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. 



99 



There is absence of Knowledge when the young man 
buying his carriage considers alone the gloss of the 
varnish, measuring not the strength of the axle, neither 
weighing the uses for which the vehicle is needed. 
There is lack of Wisdom where the painted cheek is 
allowed to count for more than the unpainted heart, 
and where wit is suffered to stand for more than judg- 
ment. Beautiful is the neck that shames the jewel, and 
fairer than pearls are teeth through which ebb and flow 
the translucent ; a scatterer of golden dust, each atom 
drunk with sunlight, is the blonde curl ; and sweeter 
than frankincense is the passion-bearing breath of 
beauty : but a wealth of charms may come to sink into 
the recesses of a skeleton that is beneath; light-scat- 
tering teeth may fall amongst black holes and repel 
amorous kisses ; gold-dropping tresses may give away 
the sun for things suggestive of decay; and frank- 
incense comes at last, in spite of its purity, to be lost 
and swallowed up in the septic. It is lack of Wisdom 
to lean too heavily upon tender things. 

No Knowledge is there where a man is led to find 
beauty and goodness and grace greater in another than 
in his own. He who baits for trout is not apt to find 
himself hooking the minnow ; eyes which look forward 
see not things which are behind. An Angel imagined, 
flesh and blood etherealize themselves in the vision. 
That which was, let it be forever. As form changes, 
let change the eyes which look. 

" Thou wert a worship in the ages olden, 
Thou bright, veiled image of divinity; 
Crowned with such beams, imperial and golden, 
As Phidias gave to immortality !"" 



lOO CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 

I think, my Lysias, that of the multitude of foolish 
people to be met with in the world there is no man 
more silly than he who estranges from him wife and 
children that he may waste his time, his morals, and 
his soul's health in search of other objects of gratifica- 
tion. Hear Zuras prate of the beauty and grace of 
Phryne. Was there ever, to believe him, such harmony 
as lives in the shades of her wardrobe ? And do not 
fields of odor, he asks, exhale from her lips? Great 
fool ! let Zelia change the scanty and mean robe, which 
yearly he doles out to her, for the bright color of 
Phryne's dressing; let the jasmine be poured over the 
sorrow-whitening locks of the debased, degraded, and 
dejected one, and who then shall have the harmony 
and the fragrance ? It is, my Scholar, as though one 
should cast mud over his own jewels, yet working in- 
cessantly to the polishing of strange stones, wondering 
all the while that as the one brightens the other dims. 
Zuras wonders what has robbed Zelia of her beauty. 

Everything must be paid for with its price : a debt 
not cancelled to-day carries with it on the morrow an 
interest, and on another day this is compounded ; and 
so it is that a dime becomes a dollar, a shilling a pound. 
When first came to the household the son now so feared 
and dreaded by Zuras, had not the boy dimples in his , 
chubby cheeks? and were not the little arms ever 
stretching themselves, tendril-like, to take hold of the 
father? But Zuras, denied he not the support claimed? 
Was it not deemed of trouble to afford the little 
needed? And thus did it come that the tendrils find- 
ing nothing at home turned elsewhere. And where is 



OF UNQUIET HOURS. iqi 

it that to-day the hands are clinging? Do they not 
shake trouble upon Zuras, even as worms fall into the 
mouth of him who lays him down beneath noisome 
vines? Ts the boy not a bawd? and bids he not fair 
to outrun his exampler in evil courses? And who 
made him a bawd and a shaker of evil things upon his 
household ? Did ever any one hear sweet discourse 
between Zuras and the boy? Have these ever been 
seen arm in arm trudging through the lessons of the 
field, taking into their natures the instruction of woods 
and running streams? 

Was it not the rather that the boy learned first 

of things devious ? Came there not to him as an early 
lesson a sense of things deceptive ? Grew he not into 
his young manhood cognizant of a second current not 
like unto that flowing upon the surface? And thus, 
discovering hypocrisy in the father, might he be ex- 
pected to deny in his own conduct the lesson of his 
life? Verily, what Zuras sowed, that is he reaping. 
Unquiet hours have come upon him. It was Zuras 
who would not let himself alone. 

Heed, Lysias! the harvest is as the planting. See 
to it; if thou wouldst have pomegranates, that thou 
plant not Dead-Sea apples. 



CONCERNING THAT WHICH IT MOST 
PROFITS A MAN TO UNDERSTAND. 

WHEN Pompey, on his way from Brundusium to 
Cilicia, made the historical visit to the queen 
city of the Grecians, that which most impressed him 
at the home of the philosophers was a line which met 
his eye as he turned to pass without the wall ; it was 
graven across the inner face of the exit-gate, and read 
thus : 

" Know thyself a Man, but act the God^ 

It is chronicled, indeed, that so powerful was the 
influence exerted on the Roman by this line, that he 
was found, ever afterwards, to hold himself of more 
heroic and dignified presence, and that when sorrow 
came upon him the remembrance of it was as a shield 
into which even the dagger of a Theodotus could not 
enter. 

Heed well, Lysias ! A man may accept wisely, with 
the "Imperator," that in the Athenian injunction is 
to be found the whole meaning of a man's life; he 
who gets to himself its import has fastened to a rock 
from which he may no more be moved than might be 
1 02 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 103 

changed the place of a planet whose holding anchor is 
the law of gravitation. 

'*But is the import for every man? Is every man 
capable of taking it into himself, and of living 
with it?" 

Thou shalt judge for thyself. Yet to understand it, 
implies that one come into such state of self-revelation 
as is alone to be found in an apprehension of the sig- 
nificance of Providence. To-day, Lysias, I would hold 
solemn converse with thee: thou wilt not deny me 
attentive ear. I would leave thee to-day having thee 
feel that Strength is no mystery, that Christ is no 
mystery, that even to apprehend of the God is not any 
more difficult a thing than it is to co7nprehend of the 
correlations and transmigrations of the entities Matter 
and Force. I desire to have thee understand, that — 
as the uses of a man are concerned — explanation of the 
meaning of the God lies within the human ; that to 
apprehend God a man must turn his eyes from the sky, 
directing them towards his own heart. 

On a yesterday it was suggested that unless a man 
has gotten to himself understanding of the meaning 
of Providence he acts not wisely in pushing inquiries 
too curiously; and this, for the reason that confusion 
must ensue, which confusion is as a pathway leading 
into blackness, — into a blackness profounder than that 
of Erebus, sorer than that which is said to come of 
being in the deepest parts of Tartarus. 

Man is to assume that in knowledge is to be found 
the key to all mysteries : how the apple gets into a 
dumpling is an enigma to a fool ; how Neptune dom- 
inates Georgium Sidus is a perplexity to the sciolist; 



104 COA'CEJ^A'IXG SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

but the enigma is easily enough solved by a housewife, 
and the perplexity is not at all confusing to the learning 
of a Le Verrier. 

It is written in the '^Arcana Ccelestia," written, not 
only in a show, but out of the logic, of widest obser- 
vation and experience, that man ought to be imbued 
with sciences and knowledges, since by these he learns 
to think, afterwards to understand what is true and 
good, and at length to grow wise. Plutarch, in his 
** Morals," has an injunction for such as would find 
good at the hands of the goddess-mother of Horus, 
which exhibits convictions entirely correspondent with 
the professed inspirations of the Mystic. **It is not in 
the nourishing of beard," taught this farthest-seeing 
of the pupils of Ammonius, "nor in the wearing of 
mantles that men find themselves philosophers ; so 
neither do shaved heads nor human garments make 
priests to Isis ; but he is the true priest of Isis, who, 
after he hath received from the laws the representa- 
tions and actions that refer to the gods, doth next 
apply his reason to inquiry and speculation of the 
truths contained in them." 

Such men, as will, grow into priests of Isis, and 
such are not to pursue their ministrations at the altar 
as automata make their marks ; on the contrary, such 
are to come to an understanding of the meaning of 
themselves, and are to recognize with the Mystic that 
*'true intelligence and wisdom consist in seeing and 
perceiving that they who will and do are they who 
are in the God, and in whom is the God." Also 
" that true intelligence leads one to understand that 
uses are subordinated in divine order, and that no man 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 105 

who has attained to knowledge pretends to arrogate 
dignity to himself, but ascribes all dignity to the use; 
and since the use is the good which he performs, and 
all good is from the God, therefore ascribes all dignity 
to the God. He, therefore, who thinks of honor as 
due to himself, and thence to use, and not to use, and 
thence to himself, cannot perform high offices, because 
he looks backward from the God by regarding himself 
in the first place, and use in the second." 

hi the God ; the God in him. This it is, Lysias. 
Here is the meaning of the human. Here is the sim- 
ple, single difference between men and the other things 
of creation. That man who is not in the God; in 
whom is not the God, differs alone in shape and aspect 
from the brutes, the vegetables, or the minerals. Such 
a man is to be accepted as having immortality after 
the manner of the immortality of Matter and Force 
existing duals : the pleasures and uses of such a man 
differ in nothing from the pleasures and uses of ani- 
mals at large. A Thing can know of itself ^ and of 
things which are without it, alone through the Senses 
found in its compositio7i. That man who is not a 
temple of the Holy Ghost, who has not as part of him 
the Sense of Godliness, can by no possibility know, 
save indirectly, of the God. 

Would I imply that there are men who are as gods? 

More even than this, Lysias. I maintain that analysis 
of creation exhibits that any and every thing seen in a 
man, which is neither Matter nor Force, is an imme- 
diate expression of that Severalty which, in its oneness, 

is the omnipotent God himself. A priest of Isis is 

Isis : that is, — see that thou get it not wrong, — is Isis, 



Io6 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

as a drop of water is the ocean : each particle being 
of the elements of the whole.* 

In Faith is the Ease of men : a man without faith is 
miserable, even though he have everything else ; who 
possesses this wealth is in comfort, though his morrow 
be without promise. Faith is strongest when its foun- 
dation is in understanding; understanding arises out 
of a reading of the open pages of Nature : here, hap- 
pily, words are of largest type, and the language is 
not without familiarity. I would assert that Faith and 
Knowledge are one and the same thing, even though 
it is seen to be the case that men are found having the 

former who are without the latter. There are many, 

many paradoxes : thou wilt not be wrong in deeming 
this to be one of them. Let a man get to himself the 
meaning of Providence, and he has gotten the Alpha 
and the Omega of life-lessons ; he has found the mean- 
ing of — Ease. 

**And can one understand, in truth, of this per- 
plexity? Can comprehension "be had of a meaning 
which is said to reside in a listening, hearing, answer- 
ing Thing, which Thing is seen to pull down quite as 
often as it raises; which is seen to menace not less 
frequently than it is recognized to bless?" 

Softly, my friend. Cannot Lysias understand how it 
is that the stream upon the surface of which our boat 
is at this moment being floated, runs always towards 
the sea even though the earth be in constant rotation ? 
May he not as well perceive that on reaching the main 
the water takes other motion which brings it back, 

* For arguments, see " Two Thousand Years After." 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 107 

even to the mother spring; and that thus, though it is 
always going, it is ever coming; that indeed the water 
is ever here, — here in this valley which lies in its 
grand solitude between these mighty hills whose rugged, 

oaken-haired heads are held so proudly over us ? 

Ah! placid stream, little different from thy life is that 
of man's mortality ; thy destiny is likewise the meaning 
of the human. Wheresoever thou art going, man goes; 
howsoever thou art coming, man comes ; forever, beau- 
tiful thing, shalt thou be found flowing in this rock- 
bordered channel between the mountains ; forever will 
Lysias and his friend be here to lave in thy everlasting 
freshness, and to drink in with greedy ear the song of 
thy rippling wavelets. 

Yet does the Life of a man, Lysias, differ from 

that of a down-gliding stream, in that the human has 
been made with hands which may hold oars. 

And still again does it differ from that of a 

down-gliding stream, in that the man is not less a 
creator than a created thing, — in that he needs alone 
to abnegate self in order to be able fully to compre- 
hend why curses are as plentiful as blessings ; why 
down-tearings are as frequent as up-liftings, — in order 
to understand that he himself is a cause of things over 
which he grieves, and at which he wonders, — in order 
to recognize the meaning of Providence. See to it, 
see to it, Lysias, that for the sake of thy manhood thou 
get understanding of what is here meant, and that for 
the sake of man's mission as he holds relation with his 
fellows, thou remain not longer without apprehension 
of the intention of thy creation. 

The meaning of a man is in what he does, and in 



lo8 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

what he becomes ; in whether he denies the God and 
remains an animal, or denies the animal and grows 
into the God. 

The Miracle of the World is that of the Deus in 
came. The lesson ever teaching itself to the observ- 
ing is that the God does everything, but that every- 
thing is done through means; that the God does 
all, yet the God does nothing. In this is, indeed, a 
miracle of miracles. Everything performs a part, 
things inanimate, as well as animated things ; rains 
descend and water the earth ; winds blow and freshen 
the atmosphere; winters come and go, thus affording 

rest to the soil and renewal of its energy. And 

men; men, according to that which they are, eat grass 
and flesh with the brutes, or — play the part of a Provi- 
dence to themselves, and to their fellows. 

Give heed, my good Lysias, and consider well a 
suggestion. Because one is a servant it is not to be 
denied that he is of the species Homo. If, in like 
manner, one maintain that effects accomplished through 
the fingers of an agent be the work of a master, he has 
fact, not less than logic, to his support. The good 
found in the world is as are the waving wheat-heads 
met with in fields, — is as are phenomena understood 
in a Noumenon. Men are, in themselves, makers of 
wheat-heads ; yet bread is from the God alone. See, 
Lysias, here are the premises of a syllogism which the 
Stagirite himself would not have faulted : ergo, it is to 
be maintained that man finds within himself a measurer 
of self. Thus it is! God being Goodness, — the ab- 
stract, the only Goodness, — all the actions of the God 
must necessarily pertain to the good ; Godliness gives 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 



109 



forth good, — the good of Will, — precisely as a sun 
gives forth the physical phenomenon of light; pre- 
cisely as water gives forth moisture ; as air is the 
source of refreshment : so, after a like manner do men 
and brutes and vegetables give forth ; — that is, each 
according to the nature of its composition. But 
man, unlike other mundane things, gives or withholds 
according to a spontaneity which he finds — or does 
not find — within himself. In proportion, then, as a 
man discovers a will that is inclined to a performance 
of godly offices, in such proportion is he to accept that 
he has the God dwelling with him, and in him ; for to 
be a cause, or origin of results, is to be Noumenon to 
phenomena ; and that is what God is. Here, Lysias, 
is a measure that may never deceive a man : hold thou 
closely by it for self-examination. Such things as are 
not begotten of an animal organization are necessarily 
of the Divine ; this we know, in that the world pre- 
sents but three entities.* Certainly man is of kin, as 
Bacon hath it, to the beasts by his body; and if he be 
not of kin to God by his soul, he is a base and igno- 
ble creature. The Mystic was even happier in the 
putting of it. Angelhood, said the Sage, is that stage 
to which a man arrives when individuality becomes 
lost in office. 

Explain this last to thee ? Willingly. So long as a 
man holds as uppermost the Self, just so long is he an 
animal acting as an animal, and consequently has no 
other strength than that which belongs to the automa- 
tonism of an animal organization ; but that moment in 

* See " Two Thousand Years After." 
10 



no CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

which Selfhood is given away to office, man becomes 
of God, and from that moment he knows himself im- 
mortal in this office, and eternal in the meaning of his 
work. Such a man has no longer any concern about 
death, because he understands that the God does not 
die ; neither has he regard to corporeal discomforts, for 
the reason that he has been rendered insensible to such 
trifles, — he has, in truth, found immortality. 

This Godhood in self, Lysias, is what a doctor pos- 
sesses when a midnight call to a filthy room in a 
filthy court is not less welcome than is a bidding to a 
palace where the flare of zephyr-swept gas-jets mingles 
with the sparkle of wine, and where livid lips, and 
glassy, back-sinking eyes, find replacement by the flush 
of passion-crimsoned cheeks and by flash of jewels 
borne on the daughters of Beauty. This, too, is what 
he feels when with sore and tired hand and brain he 
importunes continuously at the door of the Oracle 
craving from the Arcana medicines which shall afford 
to him the means of relieving and uplifting. I con- 
gratulate thee, Lysias, on thy choice of a profession. 
The Doctorate is a great step into the Substance of 
the Infinite — but, to the animal, it is alone weariness, 
weariness, weariness. 

To say, "Our Father," and to feel in the heart 
the fulness of this endearing and trust- giving name, 
is to find an all-sufficient support in time of need 
and is to get to one's self an all-satisfying comfort 
in time of trial ; we would converse to an ill end if 
our comprehension of the meaning of phenomena 
be found too meagre to lift us above the physical 
sophisms, which in these days thrust themselves too 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. m 

often with veil-like import between man's vision and 
Providence. 

We, — thou and I, — my scholar, are positivists, are 
materialists'; let us call ourselves by such name, mean- 
ing by it that we are students, together, of the natural 
sciences. We dig into the earth with a spade and with 
spectroscope we analyze sun and moon, that we may 
learn of what these things are made. We laugh in 
derision at Nobert as in the field of a microscope we 
behold the inimitable markings of a diatom. We fall 
back overwhelmed by the meaning of the name God 
as we have gotten to ourselves idea of creation as 
expressed in the space through which vision has peered 
to behold Uranus. We are Christians, my scholar; 
that is, we believe in the Christ : with all our heart, 
and nature, and our little learning, we believe in the 
Incarnated ; and we so repose our faith because that we 
find endorsement, in height and depth, in width and 
breadth, of what Revelation has unfolded and declared 
to man. Surely is it the case, as the experiences of 
a well-considered life will demonstrate, that in the 
knowledge to which a man may come has he materials 
for the lesson which Nature would teach to every one for 
his good concerning this matter of special Providence 
as the meaning of it is to be found in a law of Self- 
Dependence, — that great lesson, that the God is to be 
seen most plainly when he is seen not, and that he is 
doing all for us, and is nearest us, when, apparently, 
he is doing nothing, and is farthest away. 

Much has come into our way, my scholar, to ask 
about and to inquire into, — but never have we asked, 
or never have we inquired, where a governing or 



112 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

controlling principle was found to reside elsewhere 
than in a law, which law was discovered to be without 
change. 

It is assuredly a canon of Nature — as the positivist 
reads the lesson — that man has been appointed his own 
care-taker ; and if the lesson has been read aright, it is 
certainly the part of wisdom that one make the best 
of a condition to which he finds himself appointed, 
and that he live in accordance with it. In such under- 
standing, I may only declare to thee a conviction 
that man fulfils his part in the formula of his relations 
when he seeks, in knowledge, answers to wants; or, to 
put it in other words, it is a truth which forces its way 
to acknowledgment, that knowledge has, for man, the 
significance of Providence. Let me make for thee an 
example of this meaning. It happened thy Mentor 
only so short a time back as yester-noon to perform an 
operation of great gravity on the person of a poor and 
very illiterate man ; the endurance and stoicism of the 
patient were the astonishment of all assembled in the 
chamber ; not the heroism of Epictetus in presence of 
the tortures inflicted by the brutal Epaphroditus was 
more wonderful ; the source of the strength lay in a 
crucifix grasped tightly by the hands of the venerating 
and confiding mortal. Well, too, thou recallest that trust 
met with in the person of a disease-stricken woman 
which would not permit the approach of our professional 
office until the candle blazed on the altar of the Virgin, 
and the rosary had been clasped about the neck which 
a necessary touch was to dye so deeply with the blood 
of the afflicted one. Ah, Lysias, how much of such 
consoling and upholding faith does a surgeon meet with 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 113 

in the ministrations of his sad duties ! And what, save 
strength and skill, should the sight bring to the fingers? 
The prayers are not to the doctor, in seeming; and 
yet he is to take the ovation of blazing candles and 
clasped crucifix all to himself: his is the office of the 
power and help that is evoked and solicited ; the jnantle 
is upon him, and of other aid is there none. It was 
ourselves, Lysias, that cured the afflicted one ; it was 
ourselves that stood as ministers between the want 
and That to which appeal was made. Had this poor 
woman been away from the needed means, she would 
have found herself away, as well, from the Ear which 
hears ; and for her disease there would have been no 
remedy. Heed, Lysias, and receive understanding of 
the personal responsibility resting on a man to yield 
himself an instrument to the God whose offices are 
performed through means. Heed ! That man is to 
esteem himself the special Providence^ to any call, who 
finds himself able to answer the call ; he who turns him 
away from such a call pushes back the hand of a helping 
God. Such a man interposes deftial between a need and 
the love and care which seek to succor. 

If one accept the teachings of the God, he accepts 
that it is the priest who binds and the priest who loosens. 
Knowledge is the mantle of a Peter which covers the 
shoulders of every successor who is elected, or who 
elects himself, to the wearing of the sacred robe. Yet 
is a priest not necessarily confessor to his own faults, 
nor is a surgeon necessarily physician to his own ail- 
ments: men are made confessors and healers of one 
another, and in such a sense, wherever knowledge 
exists, there also abounds the meaning of priests and 
10* 



114 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 



doctors. A saving power is always in proportion to 
the wisdom ; a priest is strong to lift up, or a surgeon 
to succor, according as he is mighty in the meaning 
of his office. 

It is a sorry faith that leads to a dependence on 
special miracles for one's daily food and needed 
comforts : he who so trusts will find his bowels get 
empty enough, and it may not be doubted that his 
limbs will grow stiff and cold to stoniness if he wait 
until prayer shall cut and card and weave for him a 
woollen suit. And yet a miracle is constantly per- 
forming; every wheat-grain holds the loaf; every hill- 
side feeds sheep which carry about with them the needed 
garments. Heed, Lysias. When a man begs Provi- 
dence for bread, does he aught but solicit the God to 
do a mower's work in the harvest-field ? or if he beg 
for raiment, does he not invite him to a place in a mill ? 
Oh, it is wonderful, it is indeed God-like, this miracle 
of man and earth and heaven — and of hell. An au- 
tomaton looks, and the God seen in his eye is recog- 
nized by all the things of the earth. A field of dirt and 
a few seed, and, lo, in response to a command, the face 
of the ground covers itself with that bread which is the 
life of every living thing ; a good action, a single good 
turn done, and, behold, the sky opens and a dove de- 
scends. Speak to the earth in the language understood 
by it, and behold a volubility so great and so continuous 
that the barn overflows with its answer, and the store- 
house groans under the weight of good words confided 

to its keeping. -And the language understood by 

the earth has been confided to man : if one refuse to 
use this tongue, refuse to speak the word which alone 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 115 

may open the gates of the treasury, why let him starve j 
and dying, let him go his way, that room may be made 
for his betters. 

Wisdom is the protecting means ; the wider the 

knowledge the greater the safety. Get wisdom, then, 

my Lysias, if thou wouldst become to thyself, and to 
others, a Providence upon which dependence is to be 
placed. Knowledge, which gives understanding, is the 
special Providence of the world. Knowledge cures 
fever-ridden valleys; it tells the meaning of bug-pes- 
tered crops; it keeps a man in health, and enables 
him to understand that he himself is the god of the 
pestilence ; it laughs at signs in the heavens before 
which the unthinking fall down and tremble. 

But here our boat-prow strikes the landing- 
place. No matter: we may continue our discourse, 
with as little interruption, as we trudge through wood 
and by farm towards the place of our destination. 

Here, Lysias, see this stupid tortoise : no con- 
cern of danger hastens the movements of its slow- 
crawling limbs; how obstinately the reptile hugs the 
line of the treacherous rail ! Where is the Providence 
to this poor thing, if it be found not in thy hand or 
in mine? Back, Lysias, back! the train is upon us. 
Too late, alas! too late. See how the crawler has 
been scattered into nothingness. Poor tortoise, igno- 
rant tortoise, thou wast, of thyself, unconscious of the 
mercilessness of the iron jaws which were shutting 
themselves upon thee ! 

Shout loudly, Lysias: still another life is running 
the gauntlet of this place of crossing tracks. What 
animal is this that comes flying on wings of fear before 



n6 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

the mightiness of steam? See! the wretched brute 
understands the danger that threatens, yet comprehends 
not enough to make the single side-step necessary for its 
salvation. What shall save the runner? Alas! the 
times have outgrown the instincts which are its Provi- 
dence, and, like all lower things, it must fall before a 
higher, — if perchance its fate bring it to the conflict. 

And yet we, thou and I, fear not, neither are 

in danger, even although in unconcern we tempt the 
screeching monster by mocking at his power as he 
rushes with a whirl along the road of iron to which his 

law confines his course. Why this safety to us? It 

is the great law of life, Lysias ; the law of the survival 
of that which knows best how to take care of itself. 

'* Cruel and merciless is this law to the lower forms 
of life," thou sayest. 

Not so, save in seeming ; for, being found too low, 
a thing must be made over into a something higher. 
Doubt thou not that both tortoise and horse shall 
find, in good time, a plane in which exists safety for 
them. When the tortoise was made, its home was 
under the mould of the leaf-carpeted forest, not a place 
of rails and of ponderous engines ; but now the deepest 
glades of quietest woods are giving up both safety and 
solitude to the restless energy of steam. What mercy so 
great as that which lifts up and carries helpless things 
to a transformation which is their salvation ? Doubt it 
not, Lysias, doubt it not, this is a mercy of the God. 

Here is a garden, here are vital germs, and here 

are iron and wood for implements of husbandry. Has 
not the God done a great part in giving these to the 
man who owns them ? Yet if it please this one better 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. uy 

to beg than to hoe, vvhy let him try his knees and his 
words. Undeniably // is the law that something, or 
somebody, must plant and hoe ; such a law may be a 
very bad one, no doubt every man imagines himself 
able to have framed a better, still it is the law and 
there is nothing to do but abide by it ; let this owner 
of heaven -created wealth never mind the gratitude, or 
the appreciation, that belongs to noble natures, let him 
never mind the wonderful law that makes the earth 
respond to a working ; never mind the care and fore- 
thought which put water rills deep beneath the surface 
of his ground that thus he might have cool draughts ; 
but let him beg and whine; and when delving for crystal 
springs let him curse the rootlets found in the way of 
his spade, because that these make it the harder to dig. 
It is no cause for gratitude that these rootlets are the 
life of the waters — and the life of him who drinks. 

Yes ; surely it is the case that Wisdom and special 
Providence are one, and that he who would have the 
protecting care strongest about him prays to most 
purpose when he exerts himself to get knowledge and 
understanding of the laws of his relations ; and such 
study, and such understanding, bring the God close to 
a man, while at the same time they so overwhelm the 
mortal with consciousness of the mercy and goodness 
which are the protection of men, that no language of 
solicitation is found left him ; his eyes have become 
opened, and, in an astonishment that has no words, he 
stands awe-struck before the Prescience which is found 
to have considered his every want, mortal and immortal, 
even ages before his name had utterance on the earth. 
And heed, Lysi.is: it is as easy, and as simple a thing 



Ii8 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

of performance, to grasp a soulful of the immortal 
manna, as it is to get a mouthful of the bread that 
nourishes the body. 

Heed further, my thoughtful friend. What 

might possibly reconcile a man to the suffering seen 
everywhere over the earth, if one understand nothing 
of that law in which resides the miracle of compensa- 
tion ? Children taken away from the arms of doting 
mothers, husbands torn from the hearts of loving and 
dependent wives, disease attacking and defeating health, 
fortune wrested from men and scattered broadcast to 
the storm. It seems that the world goes on after this 
manner to the unthinking man ; and such a one, finding 
himself thrust to the wall, is not to be blamed because 
that he hurls a hiss and a curse at Providence and goes 
his way out into the blackness. If we, thou and I, 
might not arrive at any better understanding of these 
things, we also would curse God and die, or, if we did 
not thus, it would be our courage alone that would 

falter. But it is philosophers, they whom we take 

for our teachers, that have lifted a corner of the veil, 
and who have looked beneath the surface ; these have 
come to the understanding of transformations of unfit- 
ness into fitness, of pain metamorphosed into pleasure, 
of ugly things made over into the comely, of the old 
converted into new and fresh. No ! no ! It is not 
possible for Understanding to waver in faith : Wisdom 
smiles in trust even while the sword of the God descends 
and slays. Let us, my scholar, apprehend, through 
what we comprehend, that in the bottom of every grave 
is a door through which a dead man passes to life. 

Lean on thy own staff, Lysias, nor trust to other 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE 



119 



support. Does not experience know of what it advises ? 
Surely is this matter of a special Providence one that 
very little wisdom would seem to be able to open, and 

to look into. And yet, heed thou, heed another 

paradox. We may accept that the God troubles him- 
self little enough about the corns and the bunions and 
the gutter-slips of the people who are so persistingly 
calling on him for salves and lotions : at least these 
things are what such need for their relief, and it is to be 
inferred that, whatever the language used, cerates and 

washes constitute the meaning of their prayers. And 

yet it comes to us to recognize that outside of the God 
there is no cure, — no cure for anything, either for great 
evils or for small. Can we reconcile such a paradox ? 
Let us see. He who sits him down to analyze will not 
fail in coming to discover that ignorance may not 
heal anything ; but that cure, either of mind, body, or 
estate, proportions itself to an intelligence which directs 
a treatment. ** Not of myself, but through the Father, 
do I these things," said the Christ. So also did He 
teach that it needed but the possession of greater faith 
by the disciples that even the ponderous mountain 
should obey a voice that would command its removal. 
It is that part of the God which comes and dwells 
with a man that saves him when it is called to his ser- 
vice; and the saving-force is in proportion to the God 
evoked. The God works for a man's salvation from 
evil, when it becomes understood well enough to be 
invited into his legs if he need to run, into his arms if it 
be essential to strike, or into his brain if it be necessary 
to scheme. He who shall find himself cast suddenly 
from a ship's deck into the sea will do best by saving 



I20 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

his words and using the motions of the swimmer: or 
if he have learned none of these motions and so 
finds himself without a hand under his breast, he is 
not to grumble that he has become his own drowner. 
Heed the lesson, Lysias. There is not a care, or a 
trouble, or a danger, upon the earth, or within it, 
or above it, that the Capability of man is not the 
master of it ; yet is Capability a virtue so poorly 
cultivated that the bravest of surgeons stands cowed 
by so insignificant a thing as a cancer-cell, and an 
honest lawyer knows not which way to turn for the 
meaning of Equity. 

Cut a staff by the wayside, or in the wood, or wher- 
ever one may first be met with by thee, waiting not for 
that which is gold-knobbed, or for one the size or out- 
line of which may best please thy fancy. Everybody 
may have a supporting staff; only it is not everybody 
that will take up with the kind coming in his way. 

Make not a too common mistake, in being over- 
particular; neither, having once hold of a something 
that gives comfortable support to thee, be over-ready to 
let go ; if the right hand tire of the grasp, change the 
staff to the left, giving it up never until a better or a 
smoother be within thy easy and certain reach. Men 
put it as it is — however well or ill the manner may be 
— when they say, '' Every man for himself, and the devil 
take the hindmost." A man does best when he has the 
good fortune to understand from the start that such is 
the common rule and idea ; that it is the tramway upon 
which life runs. It may be all well enough to wish 
that things were different, or to moralize and philoso- 
phize on what the state and condition of society and 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 121 

affairs should be ; but a man cannot live on the ab- 
stract, even though appetite might be appeased with an 
olive a day. 

Look where a man will, using his own eyes, or the 
lenses of the microscope, and soon enough is evidence 
furnished him that battling and struggling are the 
means and laws of animal self-maintenance : the tiger 
lies concealed in the jungle waiting for the passing of 
an animal weaker than itself, and if the legs of the 
latter have not swifter stride than the limbs of the 
former, there is nothing, aside from accident, that will 
succor and save the weaker thing. 

The man who trusts to a miraculous up-spring- 
ing of barriers which are to place themselves between 
him and a danger that threatens, will find his flesh in 
the lion's jaw long enough before time may recover 
for him an opportunity lost in the waiting. 

Grave-yards are the thickest populated of the 

cities ; they would be the thinnest if prayers would have 
kept the inhabitants out of them ; and yet prayers are 
all well enough, only that under certain circumstances 
they are most in place if directed to the doctors. 
Believe, Lysias, that a man acts with most wisdom, 
and consequently most in accordance with the law, in 
preferring a lancet to words when about to be over- 
whelmed with an apoplexy, or in esteeming a hot foot- 
bath more to the purpose of an incipient pneumonia 
than is supplication. Heed ! We are to accept that 
it is the Deus in carne, the God which dwells in 
man, who is the curer of evil. Learn to understand 
this, then wilt thou know at which of the many altars 
offerings are to be made ; to the priest, if it please 



122 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

thee, when thy soul needs consolation ; to the lawyer, 
when thy estate is in danger ; to the physician, when the 

body is suffering. And in going to these altars man 

seeks the aid of the God, after the manner of the law 
of God ; for the offices of life are universally performed 
through instruments. He who has the best doctor 
will find himself — all other things being equal — kept 
longest out of the cemetery. 

" And what concerning prayer to the Infinite ?'* 
O Lysias, thou beloved of my heart, what words 
may measure such a subject ? What may the little say 
to the Great? the man to the God? Who that shall 
comprehend ever so little of this stupendous thing 
called Life shall have afterwards words left him for 
utterance ? An understanding of the phenomenon of 
existence cannot fail to show everything so fully con- 
sidered, so perfectly ordered, so elaborately detailed, 
that the only prayer left to man is that in which he 
breathes out his thanks. It is the Positivist certainly 
that has learned the true meaning of prayer. And 
that which he has learned is, to be ashamed to ask for 
more where such fulness has been given. See, Lysias ; 
what if where catharsis was needed there were no 
cathartics to be found ? or what if when the life of a 
man lay in the requirements of a sweat no means of 
diaphoresis existed? What if no middle tunic had 
been made to the arteries? or what if blood did not 
come to the surface to cool and to purify itself? Be- 
lieve me, my scholar, if the Positivist uses fewer words 
of solicitation than do some other men, it is for the 
double reason that he knows of nothing needed for a 
man's comfort but what is to be found lying at hand. 



CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 123 

and that to solicit would be like asking for fuller 
measure in a vessel seen to be already running over. 
The Positivist stands entranced before a majesty the 
omnipotence and graciousness of which leave him 
nothing to desire, nothing to ask for, nothing ta fear. 
The true Positivist prays, prays over every good that 
he receives, prays over every mercy that comes to 
him ; but his prayers are thank-offerings — not solici- 
tations. Understanding that power which has been 
given to man, he plants acorns, and through the provi- 
dence of a multitude of leaves he makes needed rain 
for his dry places. Comprehending the manner in 
which special Providence performs its office, he drives 
the fiend of an intermittent back into its native 
element, using alone as his instrument a twig of the 
cinchona-tree found growing along the borders of the 
marsh ; he creates a quarantine, and says to the 
scourges of the epidemics, *'Thus far, and no farther ;" 
he builds a breakwater, and from behind the massive 
pier mocks at the threatening waters of the treacherous 
sea ; he clothes himself with furs, and ceases to have 
concern about a falling temperature; he holds a crystal 
of ice to his fever-heated veins, and recks not that all 

nature is panting. And yet, my Lysias, whence are 

ice and furs and life-saving cinchona-trees? Thank 
thou the God for these, but entreat him not that, in 
servant fashion, he follow thy footsteps, carrying his 
mercies after thee. 

** Consoling enough," thou sayest, *'is all this for 
the lusty and the confident; for him of the purple 
and fine linen ; for the bride whose pillar of strength 



124 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 

is an arm of steel. But in what, with such showing 
of the meaning of Providence," thou askest, ''are to 
rest the bedridden and the helpless? Where is he to 
seek to be clothed whose garments are tatters ? What 
castle is to afford its protection to her who is a 
widow?" 

These shall rest, all of them, Lysias, in Providence ; 
all of them are to come to Lysias, or, rather, Lysias is 
to go to them. And if Lysias go not, go not because of 
a compulsion that he finds within himself, then is he to 
hang his head and pass out to a companionship with 
brutes ; for of a verity may no analysis show that he 
differs from the beasts at large; a man is to understand 
himself as being above other animals only in that pro- 
portion in which the God occupies him. That human 
who asserts Providence to be unmindful of the cares 
and miseries of the bedridden, the garmentless, and 
the heart-stricken may only be a beast ; for there is 
not within him enough of Providence to know itself. 

''And is a man to accept that when that power 
which is to be found within himself, or in his fellow- 
men, fails him, then chaos has come to him?" 

A drop of water, Lysias, has within itself its own 
moisture ; but dash of waves, the roar of surging swirls, 
and mightiness of power, live in the sea. When the 
scorching sun-rays come, a drop of water undoubt- 
edly does best by running to the ocean. Ask thou the 
God about these things ; for in what the Senses fail to 
instruct a man, Deity stands ready to inform him. 

" That thou art happy, owe to God ; 
That thou continuest such, owe to thyself." 



VI. 

CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 

THAT thou art anxious, however, to pass from these 
more serious matters of discourse and to renew 
gossip concerning things nearer to a young man's nature 
than are platitudes and apothegms, I may not doubt. 
Happy Lysias ; Love is in chase ; soon wilt thou find 
thyself entangled tight and fast enough. But heed ! 
Apollonius was not all wrong : there is a philosophy 
of love. Let us learn something about its meaning. 

It was well suggested by him of Chseronea from whose 
wisdom we have before learned, — and Plutarch, like all 
other men who amount to anything, was a true lover of 
the sex, — that woman is as a beautiful mirror to reflect 
a husband's face and temper; *' for if he be pleasant," 
said the sage, *'she will be merry; when he laughs, 
she will smile ; and when he is sad, her heart will par- 
ticipate in his sorrows, and ease him of half his pain." 
A gallant picture is this, my Lysias, drawn by a gallant 
spouse : the portrait is that of Timoxena. 

Hear also this, which Angelo has written : 

" Oh, how good, how beautiful must be 
The God that made so sweet a thing — 
So fair an image of the heavenly dove!" 

II* 125 



126 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 

And this other, by a bard of even warmer and more 
appreciative nature : 

" Now I have tasted her sweet soul to the core, « 
All other depths are shallow ; essences, 
Once spiritual, are like muddy lees." 

Wonderful, Lysias, in their fuhiess, to him who can 
understand them, are the lines last quoted. No wonder 
that men of dull taste accuse the poet of mistaking 
imaginations for facts. But the men of dull tastes are 
wrong; the capabilities which lie in a loving woman 
are beyond any words of any language to tell about 
them ; he who possesses a woman's heart — who is the 
recipient of the outpourings of her soul's core — finds 
indeed that the lover is right ; that all other depths 
are shallow ; finds indeed that even the depths of the 
poet's lines are shallow — shallow as when measure is 
compared with the fathomless and bottomless. Accept, 
Lysias, that when thou hast met Love thou hast come 
to the purest and the most satisfying of all that the 
earth has to offer ; if thou make not much of it, thou 
wilt have undone of thyself the chance for happiness. 

Yet withal has love an antithesis: out of this 

same sweetness, it is not to be denied, came the boy 
CEdipus, and the house of the father was made to suffer 
grievous wounds. But Apollo is just, and gives fair 
warning : see to it, and understand ; if thou wouldst 
not meet Fate on the road at Phocis, heed the voice 
which spake to the king : *' O King of Thebes re- 
nowned for its chariots, sow not for a harvest against 
the will of the gods, for that which is born shall slay 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 



127 



thee, and the whole of thy house shall wade through 

blood." What men call love, Lysias, is, in truth, a 

bitter-sweet. 

This- is the harvest to which Aristippus sowed : 

"I love Lais," said the son of Aretades, "to the 
end of my own personal pleasure and enjoyment, just 
as I love good fish and good wine, not expecting nor 
desiring to be beloved by these in return, but con- 
suming them because of what my appetite finds in 
them." Heed also a description, given by Protogenes 
to Diaphnaus, of certain who call themselves lovers : 
*' Some men, in their favors to women," wrote the 
teacher, "are not unlike to cooks and butchers who 
fat up calves and poultry in the dark, not out of any 
extraordinary affection which they bear to these crea- 
tures, but for the gain which they make out of them." 
Such, Lysias, are lovers who quickly enough find their 
sweet turned into a bitter, just as it is with ravenous 
eaters who get bones stuck in the throat, or as with 
drinkers who find themselves consumed of that which 
they take into their stomachs to relieve a growing 
thirst. Selfishness begets selfishness ; so out of a man's 
own evil are born those scorchers of human kind, the 
Agathocleias, Lalages, and Medeas, examples whom he 
of Verulam had undoubtedly in mind when he con- 
temned the passion as being a something of very de- 
basing influence: "As if a man," said the scholar, 
"made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble 
objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little 
idol, and make himself a subject, in place of remain- 
ing what he was born, a master." 

Easy is it, says -^schylus, to give monitions and 



128 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 

precepts when the foot is not entangled in misery's 
thorny maze. He who stealthily carries the fire of the 
son of the goddess must be willing to take the risk of 
Prometheus, and if he find himself, because of his 
temerity, stretched and fettered upon some rock in 
gloomy Scythia, he is to blame neither the law of Jove 

nor the rivets of Vulcan. The fire of love belongs 

to the god — to the godly part of a man's nature. 

When the brute part plays with this fire, it is accident 
if it get not singed. 

It is after some such manner as this, Lysias, that I 
think we are to look at it. When the God made Man, 
wishing to endow the *' Nobler Self" with a priceless 
gift, woman was created. The Saxon calls the sun 
*'She" — Die Sonne: the Saxon is right; to that 
** Nobler Self " woman is as light showing the beau- 
ties of the world ; to the Animal she may prove as 
a heat which withers and burns as does the fire of hell. 

Men use love as they are found to use the gift of 

Prometheus; many getting from it, life ; many finding 

in it, death. Hist, Lysias, a pearl upon the breast 

is an ornament ; gotten into a man's gullet it is suf- 
focation. 

No less surely than did Adam comprehend the 
meaning of Eve does a man come to the recognition 
of passion with the sprouting of his beard — unless it 
be, as has been remarked by the quaint Burton, he 
have a gourd for a head, or a pippin for a heart. But 
the passion of love, like unto the other passions, is 
not — as has been hinted — without more than a single 
signification, and though one prefer to accept it with 
Angelo, yet does he not well to remain ignorant of the 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 129 

meaning of the Carian, who describes it as that which 
places men on a level with the flies in their desire for 
milk, or with bees in their love for honeycomb ; neither 
is he wisely without knowledge of the interpretation of 
that boast of Lucretia who declared, and surely proved, 
*'that she could perform greater miracles on the human 
heart by the dexterous management of her personal 
charms, than all the philosophers, alchemists, necro- 
mancers, sorcerers, and witches of the known or un- 
known world could, by their cunningest practices." 

That man is to be looked on as a pitiable fool, my 
Lysias, who has stumbled along through life without 
ever having come to a consciousness of the capability 
of woman to afford pleasure. Woman is as a har- 
vest-field to all the senses ; sight, hearing, touch, taste, 

all, may garner from her. Man can exhaust the 

world, all of it, all save a woman; her he cannot ex- 
haust ; she reaches out of time, and the love that she 
gives, if properly used, passes with him into the eter- 
nity and constitutes the meaning of his heaven. 

Heed further, Lysias. Woman is the paradox of 
man's life ; she inspires and lifts him, she absorbs the 
force from him and topples him headlong into nothing- 
ness. An Apelles makes a Venus Anadyomene only 

when a Campaspe is the model his art reflects. And 

a Paris — a Paris risks Troy — and himself — for a draught 
from the cistern of Helen. Woman is a fragrance from 
before whose breath the odor of roses might well sink 

away in despair of rivalry. Yet it was a woman 

that breathed upon the sons of the master of the 
Golden Fleece, and they died. 

It would seem, Lysias, — to express the whole matter 



I30 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 

in other words, — as if, when Love was born, a bastard 
twin was pahned upon Venus, and that so alike are 
the two that not only are men constantly finding them- 
selves mistaken in the object of their worship, but even 
Juno is not unfrequently deceived.* Something of 
this idea had Alexis in mind, it would appear, when he 
named Heroic Love a monster of nature, wit, and art, 
a fiend, he says, who tortures the body, crucifies the 
soul with melancholy in this world, and consigns its 
victims to an everlasting torment in the world to 
come ! And not without a similar recognition was the 
anatomist when he declares that the god waits only 
until he come to the mastery, to subvert cities, over- 
throw kingdoms, destroy towns, ruin families, corrupt 
the human heart, and make massacre of the species. 

Heed, Lysias, a man is not to suffer himself to 

be betrayed by the false god, neither is he to delude 
himself with false estimates of the judgment that is to 
discover him. A Samson, strong enough, and wise 
enough, to tear asunder the jaws of lions, finds himself 
shorn by a Delilah. The conqueror of Brutus, whom 
a Caesar, with his hordes of Roman legions, was not 
powerful enough to beat down, turns at the invitation 
of a flying Cleopatra, giving away with each stroke of 
his barge-oars a league of the Nile. Ninus loses Asia 
to win a smile from Semiramis, and even Athenian 
Justice unbalances her scales before the beauty of the 
client of Hyperides. 

No man so strong, but that the god, using a woman's 
form, — the form of some particular woman, — is likely 

* Juno : the protectress of married women. 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE, 131 

to be found stronger. Agamemnon was not at all 
peculiar in having his judgment won over by the 
blandishments of Clytemnestra, and in walking upon 
silken tapestry — to a scented bath with which his blood 
mingled. The dagger that cut deep into the life of 
the master of Priam had its force, not in the memory 
of a sacrificed Iphigenia, but in whisperings of what 
^gisthus might become to the mistress of Cassandra.* 

Neither is it well that a man bite his own hand 

and then blame his teeth for the hurt ; an Aristippus 

makes a Lais; a Jason a Medea. And then, again, 

let a man beware that the false god take not mean 
advantage of his temperament ; temperament is some 
men's Mephistopheles. Woe betide the mortal whose 
eyes are not open to distinguish an Alcestis from a 
Circe ! If a man mistake the false for the true, though 
he be of the same mettle as the Thunderer himself, he 
shall not escape the rivets that bind to Caucasus, nor 
keep his vitals free of the flesh-tearing beak of the 
vulture. Hist, Lysias, look out for thyself; thou wilt 
have enough to do ; leave it to them to find fault, who, 
being without sin, can afford to cast stones ; when thy 
hairs shall have grown gray thou wilt have learned 
charity, and wilt not confound the passion of Pluto for 
Proserpine with the sentiment of an Endymion for a 
Peona. Neither wilt thou dare to fault Ninus, not 
having seen the face of the Servitor's Slave. 

Luther, our own Luther, he whom we do not hesitate 
to accept as a teacher, he who was the originator of 
our Protestantism, understood all this; understood it 

* iEschylus. 



132 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 



well ; hesitated long, no doubt, before condemning too 
freely; had perhaps as little to say about Anthony as 
about Ninus. 

Shall I recall his famous couplet, quoted on another 
occasion ? — 

" Who loves not woman, wine, and song, 
Remains a fool his whole life long." 

No wonder that a priest with such convictions re- 
siding in his temperament found it necessary to have on 
hand a supply of prayer-books, in order that one or 
more might be in constant readiness for a shie at the 
devil. A saintly man was Luther; very saintly; his 
flesh rebelled, however, at its too continuous cruci- 
fixion; his prayer-books were a needed defence; had 
he been just a little weaker, or a little stronger, — both 
mean the same thing, — Satan would have had him neck 
and heels, in spite of ptisans or breviaries, — that is, 
if it be so ungodly a thing to love woman, wine, and 
song. 

Would I condole with or condemn so epicurean a 
disposition? I would do neither, Lysias; but this I 
would do, I would have thee understand that out of 
this peculiar temperament comes the strength of manly 
men. Little men rob hen-roosts; the Alexanders rob 
empires. A great genius is a hundred or a thousand 
ordinary mortals moulded into one; the faults cor- 
respond with the virtues. I would have thee think 
twice before adding the blast of thy penny whistle to 
that great cry set up by the multitude at the follies of 
those with whom common men compare as do mud- 
turtles with demi-gods. 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 133 

In a sense, it is a misfortune to be born with tem- 
perament ; a great misfortune, — that is, if it be a tem- 
perament which keeps a man constantly under the lash. 
Is this not well expressed in that sad story of *'Iphi- 
genia in Aulis"? — 

*'I envy thee, old man; and I envy that man who 
has passed through a life without danger, unknown, un- 
glorious; but I less envy those of honor. 

Old Man. **And yet 'tis in this that the glory of 
life is. 

King. ''Pleasant things are yet not without a sting: 
yet let me forbear, remembering that what I am the 
gods have made me. But no one of mortals is pros- 
perous or blest to the last, for none hath yet been born 
free from pain." 

Forget not, Lysias, who it was that, with light stolen 
from Olympus, wandered through Crete searching for 

the Nymph to whom the hoofed Satyrs knelt. But 

a hint is as good as a sermon to him whose ears are 
open : our discourse was to be of Love, not of the 
pseudo-passion. Let us pay our court to the god of 
the wife of Admetus. 



12 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 

YET still o-ne more word concerning this matter of 
Heroic Love, and its associations. 

Of not very different make from Luther was the 

godly Augustine, — not different from him in tempera- 
ment, — not different in that prudence which Aristotle, 
with such show of wisdom, has pronounced the most 
profitable of all things. 

Let me make thee understand. A man having no 
sturdiness in his fibre is little better than a withered 
stick. Could a man, spiritless and lank, have built the 
foundations of a Reformation? or, might such a one 
repeat the glories of the " De Civitate Dei"? It is 
nonsense ; it is indeed crime against nature, that men 
are found continuously crying shame on that which is 
the meaning of their strength. The old man was right. 
''It is in this, O Agamemnon, that the glory of life is." 

Yet because a man have appetite for meat is it 

excuse for him if he eat himself into a sloth? or having 
desire for drink is he to come to no grief if he guzzle 
himself into a sot? I alter not my opinion, Lysias, 
good and bad are things of relation, not things in 
134 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE, 135 

themselves.* When the Monk wrote his couplet he 
used the words and thoughts of a man ; not those of the 
hypocrite. How is Prometheus to help it if men insist 
on turning his flame into an evil?f Or who may fault 
Song because that so many sing themselves into grass- 
hoppers?! Song is a cheerer or a depresser, Wine a 
consoler or a mocker, Woman a lifter-up or a puller- 
down — according as each is understood, and used. 

Lysias will not be among the simple who conclude 
that because in strength is found an element of evil, 
thus license is afforded to do ill deeds ; he who makes 
such mistake is not long in coming to destruction. 
What is the good of a thing, or what the bad, is to be 
understood — and is only to be understood — in the law 
of relations : this is the first matter into which sensible 
men inquire. Relation makes all the difference in 
the world: makes the difference between crime and 
innocence, between vice and virtue, between wrong 
and right. No crime at all was it in the Sultan Mah- 
moud that the wives in his harem were in number 
like unto the leaves of the palm-tree that stood in his 
court-yard ; no crime in the Patriarchs that hand- 
maidens were constrained to add their share to the 
population of the earth. But things are altering, have 
altered ; women are no longer slaves ; the earth is full 
of men. It is to-day crime if a man marry more 
than one woman — crime against the man's own good, 
— crime against the humanity of womankind, — against 



* " Two Thousand Years After." 
-f- Prometheus Bound, ^schylus. 
X Phaedrus, Plato. 



136 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 

the conclusions and convictions of that intelligence 
which from the beginning of the world has been 
working at the problem of Happiness. For heed, 
Lysias, Law means nothing different from the experi- 
ence of highest good, and every man who has common 
sense uses his best effort to live within the directions 
of the law of his surroundings ; not through fear of it, 
but because of that which he gets out of it. 

An individual man may not trust himself to his own 
direction ; too weak or too strong is he ; the organiza- 
tion of the Human is like that of a circle which reaches 
to the God by its zenith, and by its nadir rests upon 
the devil. It is a not unapt simile to liken men — the 
strong and lusty — unto the eagles. Away such soar — 
upward — upward — until eyes weak as our own lose 
sight of them ; and then at times down they tumble — 
down — down — until they are seen sprawling in the 
mud. Or, we might liken them to the fish-hawks: 
proud-looking enough when on the wing; abased-look- 
ing enough when being pulled under drowning waves 
by mean things toward which appetite has tempted 
them— by old ale-wives, forsooth. 

Now, what may a man of common intelligence, and 
that means nothing diiferent from common sense, do 
else than abhor the unwisdom of such as Aristippus ? 
Fools indeed are these : they smutch things which it is 
their best interest to keep fair ; cover lilies with filth, 

and then speculate on the problem of lost purity. 

Tar-sticks indeed, clean-looking enough in the dis- 
guises of their barky coverings ; not less lofty in stature 
than are the straight pines of the forest ; not less made 
up of pitch. 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 



137 



Yet, while abhorring, we may hesitate to be over- 
severe on the defects we condemn, being ourselves of 
the sex and not unconversant with the infirmities of its 
make-up. True, we recognize that our own appetite 
craves neither flesh nor blood, but this is not to be 
counted as virtue to us, seeing that we are of small 
mouth, that our muscles are soft, not hard like iron, 
that the furnace of our nature will burn with chestnut 
coals; seeing that Aristippus is a child of the Sun, 

that we are sons of Luna. Ah, Lysias, what a 

strange compound is man ! no better, at times, nor 
wiser, than a stork whose tidbits are searched for 
among garbage ; anon a walker with majestic stride 
over the golden streets of the sacred city, a wonderer 
at the plodders who find delight in the coarse-paved 
road -ways of Rome. Who shall say what a man is? 
what he will be? Praise no one of the race until the 
mortal part of him lies buried deep within the earth. 

Yet while not faulting Aristippus because of his 
beastly course, nor condemning a stork because the 
bird prefers garbage to fragrant fruit, it is not amiss 
that we profit from the ill of the examples and that we 
get to ourselves understanding of how much better it is 
for a man that he bend his efforts and his desires to- 
ward things satisfying and ennobling; this, not for the 
sake of that which people call virtue, — having little or 
no idea of what is meant by the word, — but because it 
is tliat an Aristippus is sure to come to a leprosy, that 
the stork runs much risk of having its muscles eaten by 
maggots. 

Heed, Lysias, our speech is after the manner of our 
animal organization. We may not say anything against 
12* 



138 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 

spleens — albeit these are the organs which make hot 
blood, — for spleens are in the bodies of all men, and 
being so found, being made of nature, they cannot be 
aught else than good things in themselves. Who keeps 
a spleen, however, in too close or too continuous re- 
lation with things adverse to its health finds it increase 
in bulk until it come« to fill the whole abdomen and 
at length to destroy him : as, for example, it is with 
foolish sheep, which, knowing nothing better, stuff 
themselves with succulent clover and thus burst their 
bellies. 

Happy are we to esteem that man whose soul-force 
is great enough and strong enough to lift the body 
into heavenly atmosphere ; but if a man have not this 
force, then are safety and comfort to be looked for 
alone in the exercise of his senses; that is, he is to hug 
the letter of the law, — is to call that white which is so 
pronounced by his fellows, and that which people in 
general smutch he too is to blacken. In one word, 
common men are to go with the crowd. Wolves that 
bite not are bitten. 

What do I mean by this last? Well, perhaps no- 
thing; perhaps a great deal. Thou wilt understand 
better when experiences explain. Heed, Lysias, there 
is much that is good in humanity ; very much. Yet 
withal is there a very great deal that is wolf-like. All 
right is it — perhaps ; assuredly it is not for us to gain- 
say it ; beasts are according to their organization. A 
wolf rends his wounded fellow; a man does the same: 
neither maybe able to control his appetite — for blood, 

or for scandal. Yet mercy is abundant — most of it 

being found, however, where least is needed. And 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 139 

charity is plentiful — a profusion existing where want is 
not. 

Grave deeply, Lysias, into the tablet of thy con- 
sciousness understanding of the fact that the nature of 
woman is negative — that she is a bringer-forth accord- 
ing to the planting ; — of flowers, lotus flowers, that 
exhale sweet odors making up a fragrance which is 
Letheon to sorrow — of nettles which may prove stings 
and smarts to all the actions and memories of a man's 
life. 

What a difference between the sexes! Man, ag- 
gressive, aspiring to domination ; woman, yielding, 
seeking happiness in dependence. The faults of man, 
positive, arising out of his puissance; the mistakes of 
woman, feminine, growing out of her unselfishness, out 
of her desire to serve, out of her self-abnegation. " It 
is not meet," says an Iphigenia, *^that a man should 
come to strife with all the Greeks for the sake of a 
woman, nor lose his life : and one man, forsooth, is 
better than ten thousand women that he should behold 
the light. I give my body for the king, sacrifice it 
that he may be saved." * This too from Alcestis : " I 
die, O Admetus, causing thee at the price of my own 
life to view the light; for while I might have married 
a Thessalian and have lived in a palace blessed with 
royal sway, yet bereft of thee I might not, nor could 
Ilive."t 

That is like them, Lysias, like all of womankind. 

Accept and act upon it as thy estinaate of the sex. 
What the mulberry-leaf is to a silk-worm, love is to a 

*■ Iphigenia in Aulis, Euripides. -f Alcestis, Euripides. 



I40 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 



woman. Give the worm its leaf, and soon the crawler 
is found grown into a butterfly. Give a woman love, 
enough of it, and soon she is seen developed into an 
Angel. 

And who that understands of the trust that lives 

in a woman's heart but will keep tight rein on his own 
rude nature, holding even his breath that no tarnish 
come from it ? Poor Heloise ! poor Marguerite ! but 
recklessness was in the heart of Abelard, and the 

prince of devils was at the back of Faust. Poor 

Heloise ! poor Marguerite ! Where, Lysias, canst 

thou find me women better or purer than were these ? 
Get understanding of the faith that lives in a woman's 
nature, and stand ever after aghast at the responsibility 
it imposes on manliness. A woman is womanly in 
proportion as she is ductile. — A woman that loves 
hesitates as little in following a man downwards as 
upwards. — Remember; it is the man who leads; the 
woman who follows. 

Who that handles a Rupert's drop but is made 
nervous lest he make havoc of the whole thing through 
an accidental twist given the stem ? Yet is a maid not 
less susceptible than is the glass, — not less easily de- 
stroyed. Who understands not the nature of a Rupert's 
drop is likely to find his hand holding nothing but bits 
of broken glass ; which, if not gotten clear of, cut and 
sting him. So also he who deals not tenderly with the 
whiteness of woman is apt to get a stain upon his hands 
which water cannot wash away, nor time wear out. 

It is with unwavering reliance, Lysias, that a woman 
is seen to lean upon the strength of the man beloved 
by her. Exquisite indeed in its expressions is the 



CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 



141 



confidence she reposes ; her prudence takes no alarm ; 
her timidity knows no fear ; she offers unstintingly, 
knowing not the pricelessness of what she offers; gives, 

counting not the cost of her gift. And heed, Lysias, 

a woman gives according to that which is the richness 
of her purity \ where there is nothing opaque all is 
transparent ; a perfectly pure woman is one that acts 
as though vice were a thing without name ; like indeed 
is she to the dove which shows alarm only after being 
stung by shot. 

But I leave thee to the experience that is to 

come, — that comes to all men. Remember, a Rupert's 
drop once broken can never be mended. 



VIII. 
CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 

THE width of an ocean is not greater than that dis- 
tance which separates nuptial from heroic love. 

Without having any certainty of knowledge about 
the subject, I incline to the conviction that the moly 
given by Mercury to Ulysses had some relation of 
meaning with our sacrament of marriage. Lysias will 
recall the story. Eurylochus and his companions 
coming to ^aea and meeting with that beautiful 
daughter of the Sun, Circe, found themselves changed 
by her into swine : all but the leader ; he saved himself 
by refusing to partake of her entertainment. Hasten- 
ing to revenge his companions, Ulysses was met by 
Mercury, who indoctrinated him into a knowledge of 
the virtues of a potent exorcism, the 77ioly. When the 
two came together, the Soldier and the Siren, in place 
of battle and destruction there was amity and alliance. 
The charm saved the warrior, even while denying him 
nothing that the island-queen had to offer. 

I think there is a very great deal of meaning in this 
story; indeed, I incline to the impression that if a 
man consider it, he will find himself able to grow the 
tnoly without any aid of gift from the winged god. 
142 



CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 143 

Another story to the same end is that of the forbid- 
den fruit which has inflicted on poor Eve the odium of 
driving Adam out of Paradise. I do not know that I 
am able to read even this riddle quite right, but I am 
not at all doubtful that there exists to-day — not less a 
reality than in the olden time — an apple of which, if 
a man eat, he finds himself in trouble ; not, however, 
because of any poison there is in the fruit, but because 
of some one or more reasons that holds the eater out 
of relation with it. 

*' No unmeaning story is it that a nail should lame 
The foot of one that in a river swam, 
For Alexinus in Alpheus found 
The cursed reed that gave him his death's wound." 

Now undeniably it is the case that a nail — to the 
uses of most men— is seen to be a very good thing, yet 
Alexinus found destruction in it ; likewise by her who 
was as a pin holding together the fortunes of Omnes 
did Ninus come, not only to the loss of kingdom, but, 
as well, of life. So that when we talk of lack of moly^ 
or of forbidden fruit, we would seem to mean nothing 
different than when we say that things are not in rela- 
tion ; and when, while upholding woman as contain- 
ing the greatest good, we add that the sex may be 
likened to a nail which pricks out the life of many a 
swimmer in the river of life, we are not to be under- 
stood as faulting the woman or as reflecting on a nail. 

Good and bad are to be accepted as things of rela- 
tion. No man shall ever find himself able to classify 
the apple. Forbidden fruit is to a man, to any man, 
what he finds hurtful to him. Lais is captivating and 



144 



CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 



Phryne is bewitching ; to deny the enchantment of 
womanly charms is to do little different than pronounce 
one's self hard as stone, or soft as silliness. I teach, 
Lysias, no such pronunciation. Indeed, I could have 
little else but pity for him should his temperament be 
of a construction that admitted of no influence from 
the fascinations of female loveliness. He would stand 
exposed to me as being deficient in gentleness and in 
sentiment. I would know him as one debarred through 
natural constitution from a participation in what the 
experience of men discovers as amongst the truest and 
most lasting of the sources of human pleasures. 

But appreciation of a thing is not the abuse of it. 
There are men, plenty of them, — perhaps it would be 
better to say that it holds with all men, — to whom the 
fullness of the earth has been given — all but a something. 
So long as such deny themselves this somethings so long 
is the universe an Eden ; but let them give way ; that 
is the end ; they are out of their paradise, — turned out 
of themselves. 

Lais and Phryne are forbidden fruit, — so also is the 
gnarled and twisted nubbin that John Smith calls wife- 
Why forbidden ? 

The answer comes out of the common experience. 
Eubatis found it necessary to decide between the 
attractions of Lais and victorship at the Olympian 
games. The Senators at Athens had to make up their 
minds between Phryne and the dignity of their office. 
After a like manner was that conclusion of the The- 
bans, which denied the Boeotian the privilege of using 
her immense wealth for the erection of a wall which 
should begirt and protect their city : a wall was needed, 



CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 



145 



greatly needed: but there was a price outside the 
money cost. The wall was to be monumental to the 
courtesan : Thebes felt that she was less defenceless 
without a, wall than without a reputation. 

A balance having two scales upon which a man 

may place his good and his better, will designate forbid- 
den fruit. 

But the woman who is not a forbidden fruit? 

Truly is that mystery which men call marriage to be 
accepted as the divinest good of life. Let Lysias never 
mind that this is a mere institution of man's making; 
that it differs with the ages of the world ; that not un- 
likely it will be a something as different a thousand 
years hence as it was a thousand years back. Marriage 
is the meaning of the happiness of men in to-day. 
With yesterday, as with to-morrow, Lysias has nothing 
to do. Like the glass called a Claude Lorraine, so 
heavenly is the virtue found to lie in this sacrament 
that though it change nothing in reality, yet do things 
looked at through it assume altered complexion, asperi- 
ties are seen as smoothness, angularity as roundness ; 
even the white cold surface of a dead life is found 
covered by it with things fresh and fragrant. 

Marriage as a forbidden fruit to man. 

God pity the Aristippi ! No priest, no civil law can 
indoctrinate these ; putters of themselves beyond the 
sacredness of the precincts of the mystery, there is no 
power great enough to get them back. Such are under 
the ban of Pronuba. Alas ! the kisses of Lais have hard- 
ened the derm of their lips ; the wiles of Phryne have 
destroyed the meaning of their manliness ; swine and 
women are incompatibles ; the question is a settled one. 

K 13 



146 CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 
Strange, though ! the Circe of Eurylochus be- 



came the loving and harmless wife of Ulysses. 

What is its meaning? Nothing different from this, 
Lysias. Thou hast seen two men make a visit to the 
sea-side ; the moisture of the salty deep falls alike on 
both ; to the one it brings robustness, the other sinks 
and falls away, retiring from the presence to become 
putrid with tubercle. In what, if not in the composi- 
tion of the men, was the wand of the Circe of the Sea? 

It is not about the heads of women that reside the 

halos seen by men : look thou for these in the eyes 
that gaze. 

A thing cannot know a thing unlike itself. Smile 
not that in such connection I use an axiom of philoso- 
phy. Love is not objective, it is a something purely 
subjective ; yet it creates ; it makes for itself the idol 
it desires ; it adds stature to stumpiness, gives flesh 
to scragginess, confers straightness on crookedness. 
Nothing at all strange is this, a thing that is subjective 
is as easily made beautiful as ugly. 

There is another manner in which we may put the 
matter. Such as Aristippus cannot by any possibility 
get from a woman that meaning of good which we 
affirm to reside with her. We liken woman to the sun, 
but she is, as we have said, a paradox, and when changed 
into a wife she is found to have become like the moon. 
The light which the moon gives is a reflection. Here 
is a mystery, two are one. Of itself the moon gives 
nothing; the sheen that comes from it corresponds with 
the sunlight that falls upon its face. When there is no 
sunlight there is no moonlight ; where there are inter- 
posed clouds there is no sheen. Who casts not light 



CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 147 

over a wife is not to look for brightness. An Aristip- 
pus has no light to give. 

There is still another way in which the unwisdom of 
the Aristippi exposes itself. Along with the marriage 
certificate a magnifying-glass is purchased ; this is kept 
ever in hand and is used as the medium through which 
are judged not only the texture and complexion of skin 
and eyes, but as well the meaning of actions and the 
significance of thought ; it is not to be esteemed as 
strange that distorting nature in this way dimples are 
seen as wrinkles, — not strange that happiness separates 

itself far from the object looked upon. Is not the 

man at the little end of his glass? and does this not 
lengthen distances immensely ? 

Often enough is it to be heard that thus and so spake 
Montaigne in disparagement of the marriage tie, or 
that Lord Bacon hinted this and that in favor of celi- 
bacy. Aristippus, and a multitude like unto him, 
wretched mortals that they are, are to be found con- 
tinuously in the assemblies or in the market-places 
prating of wives as bringers forth of care, denouncing 
these as things which grow anxieties. Like unto that 
other vision-blinded wiseacre, he of La Mancha, who 
was not of perception sufficient to distinguish between 
a charge of playful lambs and the danger which lies in 
an onslaught of mailed warriors, these are found cutting 
and slashing as if, forsooth, the fleecy bond of Hymen 
were some foul chain of iron, and not the silken gos- 
samer which all proper-seeing people know it to be. 
Well ! what may one do save pity such ? With their 
own hands they take up and fill their eyes with the 
blinding sands of Pronuba. A strange ruse is this that 



148 CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE, 

is practiced by the goddess : it saves the tender from 
the ravenous, the sensuous from the sensual, the help- 
less from the tyrannous. Juno tells her story on 
Olympus, and while the gods smile the arms of selfish 
men close on — on emptiness.* 

Different as is the brightness of day from the black- 
ness of night is a true from a false love. It is not to 
be denied that the passion of Aristippus ignites with 
a loud noise, nor that it burns with a flame fast and 
furious as the blaze of fired oil running over the surface 
of water ; but it is like to this latter thing, all is on 
the face, the heat penetrates not within ; nothing is 
made warm ; a little while, a very little while, and the 
blaze is out ; coldness and darkness are back again. 

How different this from that continuous flame and 
heat which are the light and life of a true affection ! 
Yet it might not be otherwise, for in this latter case 
the blaze and warmth are of the thing that loves. In 
the heyday it is a blaze which envelops the lover and 
seems to him, therefore, to fill the world. The stream 
of every channel shows gold-colored water. Clouds 
are not only rose-tinted, but crimson all the way 
through. 

Nor is the delight a thing alone of the heyday. 

At twenty another name for love is ecstasy ; twenty is 
the time of the spring-time freshet. What may stand 
before passion that surges and whirls as it rushes ocean- 



* Juno, or Pronuba, with a view to the deception of men who are 
too selfish to make good husbands, is said to be forever whispering in 
their ears stories of care begotten of marriage ; this intimidates them, 
and by such reason she saves women from falUng into their power. 



CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 149 

ward seeking equilibrium ? But between the freshet 

of youthful impulse and the sea of age are broad 
meadow-lands. Here lives a quiet known only to the 
husband. It is here that the surge and the dash settle 
into calm; that narrowness grows into broadness ; that 
life begins the unfolding of its meaning. 

Ah ! meadow-lands of middle life ; here love 

assumes new face and fresh attraction ; children come 
into the meaning of the life ; a past finds its way back ; 
that which seemed dead long ago is resurrected ; the 
man's self grows young, even though his head become 

balder of hair, or grayer. And here, the restless 

propensities having passed away, man is made to under- 
stand how good a thing he has secured in a fireside 
that is all his own. Now does he comprehend that the 
anxieties which may have been his portion are like 
unto investments which it costs a toiler much trouble 
to make, but which have the meaning of an interest 
which is the support and comfort of old age. 

Truly a divine passion, the divine passion, is this of 
love. Who shall say nay to the anticipations which 
enter into a man and which take full possession of him 
when it has come? What strength is added to the re- 
solves ! Muscles grow into steel springs ; the heart 
propels its spirit into and through another life; 
humanity enlarges itself; one existence becomes many. 

Unhappy mortal who in the day of youth considers 
not the dreariness of age. It is cold when the fire has 
gone out. And can one kindle a fire when the embers 
of his life have fallen into ashes? The blaze of love, 
lighted in youth, is a self-supplying flame, it will burn 
on forever, if not interfered with ; but in age there 



I50 CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE, 

is nothing with which to start a fire. Age of itself 
grows older and older, but Love, united with age, turns 
it round, making it younger and younger. The chil- 
dren of a man are the man born over; the secret of 
Hermippus is with every father. 

But I will tell my Lysias the story of nuptial 

love in telling the story of one Lysander, a man well 
known to myself; one who I cannot but think has 
understood the meaning of marriage as well and has 
gotten as much out of it as has perhaps any other. 



IX. 

THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 

THERE is much similarity between the life of which 
I would tell and that of my Lysias, to whom I 
tell the story ; quite enough to allow of it serving as a 
mirror in which to see something of what may be made 
the meaning of one's own love. 

Yes, one's love is what one makes it : not the 

rod of Hermes, but the heart of a youth of Cenchreas 
is it that lifts up the Lamia. 

To talk of Lysander carries me back even into the 
days of my own youth ; he was amongst the nearest 
and dearest of my early friends. Ah, Lysias, they 
were halcyon days, and to tell about them brings all 
back again. How much there is to recall ! how much 
to live over ! Boys in the olden times were boys, not 
men. None better than Lysander and myself knew 
the haunt of rabbit or the nest of squirrel ; not for 
murder's sake, but for companionsTiip. With the 
rabbit we drank from the wood-streams, and with the 
squirrel gathered winter store of nuts. It was ourselves 
that could lead the stranger where he could swim in the 
stream without fear of accident from jutting stones; 
and it was ourselves that knew where the picnic could 
find choicest trysting-place. 

151 



1^2 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 

The village boys called Lysander "the dreamer,'* 
and the village boys had named him rightly; he was 
forever in a dream. He would lie throughout a live- 
long summer's day beneath the shade of some great 
tree that skirted the stream-side, his eyes looking 
heavenward, and his soul so far away from his body, — 
so far away, — so far away. 

" What is it?" he one day asked me, as in the wood 
we had accidentally disturbed a wounded bird which, 
after fluttering for a moment, died at our feet. " What 
is the meaning of it ? What is death, Darby?" And 
then, the lifeless bird in his hand, he stretched himself 
full length on the ground, saying that he too was dead; 
that bird and boy were going a journey to the spirit- 
land. It was dark night before his dream or his trance, 
whichever it was, had passed away. This was very like 
him. No wonder he got the name of *' dreamer." 

Well mingled up with the early histories of both 
our lives are memories of an old black man, to whom 
Lysander attached himself as a son might to a father ; 
a man whose heart was as white as his skin was black. 
With what delight have I sat day after day watch- 
ing "down-sinking corks," while listening to homilies 
which would have done credit to tongues of the choicest 
pronunciation ! A veritable Izaak Walton was the old 
man, and not of less skill in a judgment of mortals 
than in the things of hook and line. He too knew 
many a Dr. Donne and many a Sir Henry Wotton ; 
and he too could have composed biographies. 

A thrower of cold water was he; not always, how- 
ever. "Look before you leap," that was his favorite 
maxim. " Not always, — not always, boys," would he 



THE STOR Y OF L YSANDER. 



153 



say, **is a pretty maiden to be taken for what she 
appears to be; and not always is amiable-seeming to be 
accepted for amiable-reality." Once started, the old 
man, like a wound-up clock, would run on until he 
had exhausted his spring. ''Look in a rouge-pot," he 
would say, " for the meaning of flushed cheeks, and 
don't forget a nigger's warning when he tells you that 
a bosom which to the eyes of a young man looks alive 
with fire, may have no more warmth in it than has any 
other cotton-boll." 

The old man in his early days had been a house- 
slave, and was supposed to have had an uncomfortable 
experience with a petulant young mistress. Lysander 
would accuse him of being soured against the sex. 
*' As you please," he would answer, "but don't be guy 
enough to mistake the jaunty shoe for a dainty foot, 
or a sleeve sent home by a dressmaker for an arm 
of flesh and blood." ''Good temper, — I know it," 
he would say: "a something kept often enough for the 
putting on and off at a parlor-door ; not unlike to 
the honey which lips carry in a drawing-room, but 
which turns to vinegar when the flies are out of the 
way; or not unlike to the tidiness which changes to 
slovenliness when from the street it steps across the 
kitchen-door." It was undeniable, the blackamoor 
could say disagreeable things when the occasion was by. 

Yet there was another side. Unlike the sage Apollo- 
nius, he apprehended the transforming and transmuting 
power of Love. "No use of talking to boys," he 
would add, and his eye would twinkle as if he under- 
stood that we had detected the fallacies of his strictures. 
"A boy sees the maiden that is in his eyes." Did 

G* 



154 



THE STOR Y OF L YSANDER. 



I learn this lesson first from the old man? — " Whoever 
is in love sees nothing but beauty, doubts nothing but 
the existence of things untrue. Love finds music even 
in anger-stamping feet; sees grace in arms made out 
of cambric ; calls that cleverness which is not outright 
clumsiness; esteems as preference that which is not 
absolute slight." 

I recall an interruption once made by Lysander. "I 
have caught the secret," he said. " I will have a wife 
who shall be beautiful and true and clever forever. I 
will not change; then my love cannot." 

The black man stroked the soft hair of my friend. 



** It is the secret," he said. 



Lysander was a born lover of woman ; to her he 
looked for an embodiment of the charms of the world. 
Whenever he would query as to the good, the beau- 
tiful, and the true, it was towards woman that all his 
imaginings were directed. Worship of the sex com- 
menced with his earliest years. Mother and sisters 
were esteemed as of organization quite apart from his 
own, and of higher meaning ; the very woman-servants 
of his father's kitchen found in him a helper to relieve, 
or, if to relieve was impossible, then one who was ever 
ready to help bear a burden. 

I speak it not to his demerit that as age grew apace 
I recall a thousand blushes telling the story of rapid- 
beating heart-throbs; that even now there are in my 
possession — I need not say how I came by them — many 
bits of faded ribbon, and forget-me-nots woven in silken 
pages ; and in particular a little green-painted cup 
which once — a long, long time ago — sweet girlish lips 
did drink from, and which has carried never but nectar 



THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 



155 



to his. Ah, Lysias, I have such bits of ribbon and 

such a cup of my own. Who has not ? Let me shut 
my eyes for a single moment, that I may go back to 
the days of ribbons and cup. I know not why it in- 
trudes, but there is just now ringing in my ears the first 
line of a verse that has often enough stirred up the 
fountain : 

" Do you remember, do you remember the days of long ago?" 

But I forget; it is Lysander's story I started to 



tell, not my own. 

A worshiper of the sex indeed. Woman, to him, 
was not a helpmate to assist with burdens, or to share 
sorrows, or to come to pain, or, worse than all, to 
change ; but the blush and the flush of cheek and the 
golden wealth of curls were to him immortal things, — 
as immortal as Beauty's self is immortal, — and Lysander 
idolized — and still idolizes, for still to him there is but 
one angel amongst the things of creation, and the name 
of the angel is woman. 

Twenty years, twenty halcyon years, were passed by 
the boy amid the surroundings of his birthplace. One 
long and bright summer's day were these years, and in 
it there grew to fulness a tree which now covers him, 
and under which his house is built, having for its foun- 
dation immovable stone : that foundation is reverence 
for, and faith in, the nobility of womankind. 

** He may have seen but one kind of woman." 

True enough, Lysias, up to a certain period. Yet in 
his later years there is no alteration of opinion, and 
now he has seen much and has been thrown in contact 
with the sex far beyond the ordinary experience of 



156 



THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 



men ; but still he maintains that there is but one 
kind. 

" He could have no sympathy, then, with , 

whose wife yourself has pronounced a shrew." 

A shrew was it I said ? That is too generous a word ; 
has mistaken a devil for a woman ; devils steal 



often enough the guise of fairness. 

When twenty years were passed, misfortune, as if en- 
vious of a life so far separated from its own, brought 
many troubles to bear upon Lysander, jerking him 
with rough hand from his happy dreamland and cast- 
ing him with merciless indifference upon a world with 
which he was little prepared to struggle. But mis- 
fortune destroyed him not ; out of the ill has come, he 
says, the blessing of his life. 

I need tell thee only that which relates to his love. 
An adventurer in seeming, and a wanderer among 
strangers, Lysander found himself one summer day 
standing in front of a country house, whose knocker 
had just resounded through hall and chamber the blow 
he had given. She who opened to him was a fair girl 
of tender years, whose disheveled curls and half-opened 
eyes plainly enough exhibited that she had been rudely 
aroused from an after-dinner nap and was performing 
her office in half unconsciousness. Yet this was the 
Destiny, and this was she whose name Lysander now 
celebrates in prose and verse, and who is not less beau- 
tiful to our friend than is the slender and delicate one 
to Antheros. 

" A winsome wee thing, 
A handsome wee thing, 
A bonnie wee thing, 

This sweet wife o' ." 



THE STORY OF LYSANDER, 



157 



Twenty and more years have again passed since 
Lysander stood in that summer day on the stoop of 
the country house ; twenty years which have carried 
with them pestilence and earthquake, yet which have 
had found in them nothing but happiness for the hus- 
band, nothing but growing charms for the wife. It 
has been, indeed, as though Evil, ashamed and dis- 
heartened, had betaken its presence the farthest possible 
remove from his household. 

Perhaps there is a secret ; perhaps none. Lysander 
says that to get the most out of life is to get the most 
out of to-day. No to-morrow for him. To-morrow, 
he maintains, belongs not to any man, and so, living 
each day as though it held the fulness, he has felt the 
time a something too precious to be wasted. Even 
would he smile to hear me speak of misfortune as cause 
of ill, or of the absence of it as reason for happiness. 
Lysander believes as we do, that the most reliable de- 
pendence is that which a man places on himself. It 
is a saying of his, ''that what a man has had nothing 
can take from him." 

The married life has been one long day of courtship, 
and while others now see hairs enough that are as silver 
strands about the head of the wife, yet the flattering 
tongue of the husband convinces both her and himself 
that the tresses are yet golden, — golden as when twenty 
years ago they fell upon the balusters of the old stairs 
at the country house. 

No grumbler is Lysander. Even if there are ills in 

the world, he maintains that people are found much 

more disposed to hunt these up than are these to hunt 

up the people. Then, again, nothing is accepted by 

14 



158 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 

him as an evil where a worse might be in its place, 
neither will he admit as being a distress anything which 
has either remedy or hope associated with it. A con- 
stant saying with him is, ''that to the man who has 
faith in God nothing is an evil." 

Lysander has been trained in philosophy ; well and 
fully does he understand that the safety, happiness, 
and good of men are soonest found in leaning on the 
muscles which God has given them, and in cultivating, 
improving, and employing the senses with which they 
find themselves endowed. He asks not the God to 
delve for him, but himself drives through the earth 
colter and spade, thanking all the time the Law-maker 
for the law that has put response in the ground. As 
for his love, this he most assiduously waters and culti- 
vates ; digs about the roots ; supports boughs that grow 
over-heavy ; fences against north winds ; invites the 
sunshine. What wonder that of himself he has in- 
fluenced the law to grow for him a banyan which each 
year is seen to extend and to enlarge itself! Lysander 
takes every possible care of his love, leaving it not, as 
do a multitude of people, to take care of itself. 

Here is another of his sayings, as just now it comes 
to my mind, ''It is as feasible to get over a mountain as 
over a mole-hill ; an only difference lies in the stride." 
And here is still another, '* Healthiest bodies have 
weak spots." Our friend has learned the secret of the 
doctors in curing sores by being more careful of them 
than of the well places. Lysander understands that 
love is the price of love ; confidence the price of con- 
fidence ; respect the price of respect ; and so he secures 
to himself the good things he so much enjoys in com- 



THE STOR Y OF L YSANDER. 



159 



pensating for them in the kind of coin demanded for 
the purchase ; not trying, or even thinking of paying 
in counterfeit. Lysander understands that a wife is not 
as a servant, who finds in dollars satisfactory requital 
for what she gives ; nor like a housekeeper, whose re- 
ward lies in seeing the master enjoy the dainties of her 
table. True, he has no name for what she is : Rara 
Avis is too earthly; Divinity is not even heavenly 
enough. With bended knee he does adoration, deem- 
ing the service all too poor for the debt he owes. Ah, 
what life-giving pabulum is love to a woman ! Be sure, 
Lysias, that when the bride comes to thee this be her 
daily food. I am not wrong, give a wife this, enough 
of it, and ugly and beautiful alike undergo apotheosis; 
doubt this not, for be thy heart big enough and hot 

enough thou shalt for thyself behold the miracle. 

But, on the other hand, let love be denied, and a change 
of even greater significance is seen ; without this a 
woman falls into nothingness; she goes out and away; 
she becomes a body not less cold than that which an 
undertaker prepares for a funeral. 

And if it be, my Lysias, that a man, either be- 
cause of ignorance or what else, cheat himself, debasing 
the warm into the cold, the effulgent into the umbra- 
geous, the sparkling into the insipid, the angel into the 
crone, what is to save him from the ice, the shadow, 
the vapid, and the poison ? Oh, unhappiest of unhappy- 
wretches, that, having a mountain-spring capable of 
yielding nectar, thou hast polluted the stream at the 
source. Let such a man go out and drown himself, 
for be he of high place or of low, esteemed with the 
wise or classed with the foolish, he has made a blunder 



l6o THE STORY OF LYSANDER, 

that has no remedy; to die is only the finish of an 
irreparable mistake. 

Most wise is Lysander in not putting the trust of his 
nuptial happiness in any to-morrow. It is for a sensi- 
ble man to deem the present day the only one in which 
blessings exist for him ; so, to-day, Lysander allows 
nothing to interfere with his bliss ; discomforts he puts 
off until to-morrow ; to-morrow is time enough, he 
maintains; and as his to-morrow — because of his pre- 
cautions — never comes, so he is found to keep his joy 
and to dismiss his ill in one and the same act. 

It is a strange fancy, but in a certain book made up 
of heavy unprinted pages, and which is seldom found 
from under the privacy of lock and key, is to be seen 
a picture done in the funereal tones of india-ink, upon 
which Lysander looks and meditates whenever doubts 
come to him. It is a picture showing an open grave, 
by the side of which stands a bier holding a coffin ; near, 
in the foreground, is a stone, across the white face of 
which is written the simple sentence, ^'■To-morrowy 
Something like this is the meaning of the picture. 
What husband shall stand by the grave-side of a wife 
and not go mad if the yesterday has been sacrificed and 
lost ? A wise man does not see darkness in a grave ; 
but the yesterdays ! the yesterdays ! who shall spare 
curses to himself if the yesterdays of a dead wife are 
remembered as clouded ? or who is to cease from call- 
ing himself fool where the yesterdays have been nothing 
better than black shadows ? Lysander looks upon this 
picture and renews comprehension of the meaning of 
a present ; of a present which happily shows no open 
grave ; no bier supporting a coffin ; no tombstone with 



THE STORY OF LYSANDER. i6i 

^^ To-morrow'^ written across its face; and if here and 
there over, the page upon which he meditates are to be 
seen stains as if made by falling tears, these tell quite 
as much of consoling reflections as of anticipations 
which bear sorrows in their train. To-day the sun is 
shining brightly; Lysander may not deny this; it was 
bright yesterday, and the day before it was radiant; 
how the heart swells as the man remembers these 
blessed yesterdays, — never an hour in which the planet 
ceased to give forth its consolations, never a moment 

in which has lain a shadow cast by himself! Yet it 

is natural that imagination will run forward, — who may 
keep it back ? — a bier will be seen bearing its coffin, and 
an open grave with its threatening pile of dirt will 
figure itself upon the outlook. It is with bowed head 
and close-shut eyes that Lysander turns from his picture, 
spreading his hands tightly over his ears, as if forsooth 
this would shut out internal sound of falling clods. 
Oh, happy Lysander, who has no sad memories to put 
into a wife's coffin; no yew which lacks an elsewhere 
for its necessary planting than the mound under which 
sleeps one who has found in its darkness the only rest 
that has been hers. 

Heed, Lysias, I would add a word to this. Howso- 
ever sweet the music listened to by Lysander, howso- 
ever siren the lips that utter inviting sounds, howsoever 
bewitching the discourses that fall like plash of foun- 
tain, there is one strain, one voice, which to him is the 
key-note of all harmony, the measure by which all 
comparison is made. Lysander drinks not of refresh- 
ing waters but that he wishes the cooled throat were 
that of his fair Madeline; he snuffs not into his nostril 
14* 



1 62 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 

the morning-freshened odors met with in his rambles 
on the hill-side but that he longs to give the sweetness 
to Madeline. He lies again as of old through the live- 
long day under trees of the stream-side, watching the 
flying and speculating about the fleecy clouds over- 
head, giving to each as it passes some fancy to carry 
away with it on its journey; yet all the while in an 
under-breath is he humming the soft words of Por- 
phyro,— 

" My Madeline ! sweet dreamer ! lovely bride ! 

Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest 
After so many hours 'of toil and quest, 
A famished pilgrim, — saved by miracle." 

And this, Lysias, is the answer to his love and 

his longings : 

" Ah, Porphyro ! . . . but even now 
Thy voice was as sweet tremble in mine ear, 
Made tunable with every sweetest vow ; 

* « ;s * iff 
Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, 
Those looks immortal, those complainings dear ! 

* •«- * * * 

For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go." 

Ah, Lysias, learn in thy own experience what a 
Madeline beloved can give to a lover like Porphyro ; 
truly the poet speaks well: ''Into the other's dream 
each melts, as the rose blendeth its odor with the vio- 
let." See to it, see to it, my sweet friend, that thou 
lose not any particle of this heaven-born incense of 
love. A Thea is it, and though a Saturn, gray-haired, 
and quiet as a stone, sit in the shady sadness of a vale, 
his kingdom gone from him, and lost, yet here is power 
to create, to fashion forth another empire, another 



THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 163 

universe, — happy Porphyro, — over-happy man, ever 
drunken with the charm of a Madeline, —enviable, most 
enviable Porphyro ! 

And to know, Lysias, that a Madeline exists 

wherever is to be found a Porphyro ; that a Porphyro 
is the maker of a Madeline, — how little different is this 
from saying that men are their own heaven-makers ! 

It was true, Lysander had caught the secret. What 
miracle-doers ! O Lamia, divine to the love of a 
Lycius ! O cursed Sophist of an Apollonius, having no 
better office than to wither a sweet bride, pulling from 
between her rows of pearls a forked tongue, which love 
had buried so deeply back in the throat that but for 
thy accursed art the Corinthian had never discovered 
the reptile in his bride ! Heed, Lysias, the caresses 
of a serpent were not distinguished by love-blinded 
senses from the foldings of warm, soft human arms. 
What was there in this that an unbidden guest, with 
*'keen, cruel, perceant, stinging eye," should perceive, 
that he should expose defects in the metamorphosed 
one? cold bald-head, it was not Hermes, Hermes of 
the winged heels, who had done this miracle, and in 
whom was the undoing, but it was Lycius, Lycius' self, 
who was the swearer by the serpent rod, and by the 
eyes, and by the starry crown, and it was in Lycius 
alone that lay the coming of the woman's form, and 
the bliss of place so ardently desired and so longingly 
anticipated ; and now, now are Lycius' arms as empty 
of delight as are his limbs of life. Be not deceived, 
Lysias, each lover is his own stealer of Olympian light.* 

* Refer to the sad story of the Lamia as told by Keats. 



1 64 THE STORY OF LYSANDER, 
Still other reminders has Lysander in this strange 



book of his. He has a rose, once exquisite, and of 
such exceeding sweetness of odor that its fragrance was 
the scent of a house. While this flower was in the 
freshness of its bloom it was shut out by its owner from 
the air and the sunshine, and made to lie, still and quiet 
and dead, between other of the thick unwritten pages. 
Lysander looks often at this smothered rose, and won- 
ders not that so many wives are found, like unto it, 
withered and scentless. 

Another page in this same volume shows a daughter 
without confidence in, and a son without respect for, a 
father. In the background is seen a creeping brute 
scenting filthy garbage which lies scattered about his 
feet. 

And there are yet other pictures; one that is 

often pondered over by Lysander shows the odd sight 
of a single dollar which seems as if being blown in at a 
front door, while from a back one are seen going out 
two ; peering through an intermediate window are the 
threatening yet warning eyes of Poverty. This is a 
picture to which Lysander always turns when tempted 
to extravagances. 

Another of the pictures shows a father, mother, and 
children walking, one after the other, in an endless 
furrow ; or, if not endless, figures in which the line be- 
comes obscured look much like a cradle at one of the 
ends and a coffin at the other; all the travelers seem 
weary and dejected ; hopelessness is alone seen in the 
eyes of the younger ; dissatisfaction in the faces of the 
elder ; a staff in the hands of the father threatens any 
arm which might be stretched out to pluck a flower 



THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 165 

met with in the passing. When Lysander looks at this 
he feels that it teaches him to understand the meaning 
of the little sympathy too commonly existing between 
parents and children. 

Another picture shows the inside of a church ; gal- 
leries and aisles are crowded, but the faces of the people 
wear an every-day expression, all but the occupants of 
the front pew; here there is great grief, *' hearts bowed 
down." In front of the altar is an open coffin ; from its 
soft pillow of silk a little cold face is looking out ; were 
it not so marble-like we would take it for the original 
of one to be seen in the parlor of Lysander. Why is 
he so affected in looking on the page? What is the 
meaning of the association ? Shutting the book, he 
rushes from his library, and finding the child to whom 
the dead face bears likeness, he hugs her to his bosom 
and his heart. What a strange fellow ! does he think 
that his own little girl might come to such coldness, 
such hopeless coldness? that an undertaker might be 
found who would twist into a coffin-lid covering her 
dear face the screws seen lying on an adjoining table ? 
that a priest could be unfeeling enough to drop ashes 
over her fair body? Whatever he thinks, he never 
looks upon the picture but that his heart is made 
warmer, and the care bestowed upon his loved ones is 
redoubled. 

Thou understandest. It is the study of Lysander to 
comprehend the meaning of life ; the meaning of him- 
self; the meaning of things which bring happiness, or 
which, when abused, entail misery. Out of this has 
grown a life so blessed, a home so happy, a woman so 
apotheosized, that Lysander wonders if the preachers 



l66 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 

do not misinterpret when they speak of a paradise 
lying apart from a man's self. The passage, ''the 
kingdom of heaven is within a man/' has for him most 
literal meaning. He thinks there needs to be nothing 
better, so full and so complete is that state into which 
he finds that man is capable of bringing his own nature. 

Now about thyself, Lysias. Like Lysander in char- 
acter, be thou like unto him in thy success of life, — in 
thy understanding of the meaning of love and its asso- 
ciations, 

" All the virtues and charms live in Elvira." 

Spoken like my Lysias. This is a proper beginning. 
Having come to a knowledge of love, do thou feed 
and pamper the passion ; polish and stroke it with thy 
hand, say thy prayers to it, bow before it as before a 
shrine; see nothing so warm as the red that lives on 
the lips of the beloved one, nothing so lustrous as the 
light that comes from her eye ; hear no music so rap- 
turous as the tones of her voice. Know nothing of any 
grace greater than that which abounds in the move- 
ments of her form ; give thyself, body and soul, to this 
Elvira; she will show thee man's shortest road to bliss. 

*'A wife I would assert as being above all other 
things." 

No ; it is the state of wifehood itself that asserts 
this; even in like manner as Beauty declares her su- 
premacy over Ugliness ; as Virtue compares to the 
detraction of Vice ; as Simplicity shows how much bet- 
ter she is than is Indulgence. To live, and not to love, 
is to exist in misnomer. Wife and love are, or should 
be, synonymous. Who makes them anything else is a 



THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 167 

fool in his very constitution ; unless indeed, like , 

it has been, his great ill luck to come to the hopeless 
misery of finding himself chained to a fiend who has 
cheated the world by getting into the form of woman ! 

Hist, Lysias, the wife of is not a woman ; see 

that thou make not any such confusion of terms. 

"But Elvira is a woman; a real woman, soul and 
body." 

Happy Lysias, see to it, see to it that the dream end 
not in a nightmare ; that the refreshing green thing 
turn not into a tongue of flame, that the champagne 
which thou quaffest change not its bright bubbles into 
a mephitic vapor. Do not forget. A man may not 
narrow a thing yet have it broad, or blacken and yet 
have it white, or befoul and have it fragrant. Is not 
sleep the most grateful and refreshing of the means of 
rest ? Yet when there arise out of it black dreams, who 

does not come to fear it as an evil ? But do black 

dreams come to a man otherwise than through his own 
folly ? Who that attains to the possession of a garden is 
to expect fruit out of it unless that he plant and culti- 
vate ? Is a man to look for roses where he allows his 
bush to degenerate into a bramble? Or is he to ex- 
pect that the spring wherefrom he drinks will yield him 
sparkling water unless that with sedulous care he keep 
the mud from covering the silver sands of its bottom? 

Forget never, Lysias, it is with women as it is with 
natural trees; if one like not a fruit that is borne, a 
graft will convert acid into sweet, bitter into grateful. 
A new fruit brought out of an opposite stalk corre- 
sponds with the influences which encourage the growth. 
We may not repeat this too often. 



1 68 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 

Fruit is in the grafter, not strictly in the tree ; this 
being the case, a man is to understand that it is to him- 
self he is to look for the character of that which his 
garden produces. 

A paradox indeed is that which has been given to 
man as "heaven's last, best gift." Woman is the all, 
she is the nothing ; the shades of her virtue are like a 
•sun, like a moon, are like the color of a chameleon ; 
they are from within, they are not from within. With- 
out the Proteus there are not the golden tints of its 
derm, yet no one thinks to look for this beauty unless 
the sun be shining. Neither any more, as has before 
been surmised, is brightness to be looked for on the 
fiice of a wife unless light fall upon it from a source 
external to itself. No countenance of woman has ever 
yet showed bright when there were set against it only 
clouds or blackness. 

He who would have a chameleon show well is to pro- 
tect it from the storm ; so also he who would keep the 
face of a wife aglow is to keep it covered with a glory 
reflected out of his own nature. What ! shall a sullen 
and coarse man expect to elicit favors courteous and 
refined? Or is one cranky and vulgar to anticipate 
the coming to him of things straight and clean? Such 
results, Lysias, are not in the way of nature ; the law 
is, as we have understood it, Of the kind that a man 
sows, he gathers. 



X. 

ABOUT NOOSES. 

FLIES in webs, and flies out of webs ; men in nooses, 
and men out of nooses. Is it not evident to him 

who has eyes in his head, and who uses them, that man 
is the tier and untier of liis own knots? 

Can it be said that a noose is a thing in and of itself? 
Yet is it not the case that nooses are to be found every- 
where? Is not a boy apt to get his first knowledge of 
them through the heedlessness of some playfellow, who 
causes him the fracture of a leg or an arm by a twist 
made in the long grass of a hill-side? Are not callous 
men likely enough to find a last experience of them, 
together with a broken neck, through a loop which a 
hangman makes at the end of a bit of rope? 

What, then, shall Lysias conclude? Is it well for 
boys that they run down-hill with shut eyes? or for 
men that they walk over a street on which lives an 
executioner? 



IS 169 



XI. 

LYSIAS. 

THE long and leisurely lessons of pupil and guide 
are over ; there has been a change. Lysias has 
come to the instructions that lie in a wife and a fire- 
side ; and to-night is one of a very great many that 
the old Mentor has thought his thoughts and smoked 
his pipe in a quiet corner of his young friend's library; 
not unmindful, as it must be admitted, of the share 
had by his teachings in the making of so comfortable 
a home, neither unappreciative of the good that has 
come to him in return. 

A happy home, indeed ! I put it to the credit of 
Lysias that he has inherited from me a becoming love 
for the society of a glowing grate, and that the friends 
he sets most store by are such as hold places on his 
book-shelves rather than those seen occupying his 
seats; hence the company met with at his house is more 
frequently a quiet than a noisy one ; although often 
enough it is the case that certain easy-chairs are found 
filled by grave professors, or it may be by those whose 
names are not unknown to the world as poets, essayists, 
journalists, or scientists. Lysias calls these his philos- 
ophers, and never does he weary in gleaning from their 
fields. They are friends who have been selected out 
170 



LYSIAS. 171 

of a regard for their virtues; never out of any con- 
sideration for their estates. Such companionship is 
a mine of wealth to the possessor of it. My pupil is 
fortunate. 

By profession a doctor, it is yet not to be denied 
that Lysias practices much at the trade of the bohemian ; 
indeed, so frequently is it the case that the ragged 
jacket of the latter is found to interfere with the prim 
set of the black coat of the former, that I doubt not 
that between the vagabond free-habits associated with 
the one and the great regard that must be had for the 
gloss of the other there are times in which the boy 
finds it hard enough to keep from being whirled by 
Charybdis without striking over hard against Scylla. 
However, never having been able to get quite clear of 
a certain sprinkling of this same temperament myself, 
and being somewhat uncertain as to the influence of 
the infusion on my pupil, I say nothing in the way of 
objection to the habit. Certainly his indulgences af- 
ford him diversified pleasures, and I have not been able 
to perceive so far that he has been in any way injured 
by them, the single item, perhaps, of personal dignity 
excepted ; a matter, by the way, this last, which I think 
would trouble any sensible man very little, seeing that 
to be clear of it is to be rid of a burden. 

Attributing such disposition to my friend, I am not 
to be understood, however, as identifying him in any 
manner with that large class of literary or professional 
improvidents which has brought this patronymic into 
its too often well-merited odium ; to nothing is he 
more unlike than to such. The vagrancy is of a dif- 
ferent nature altogether; consisting, not in neglect 



172 



Z VS/AS. 



of, or in indifference to, the duties of his position and 
calling, but understood and recognized in the variety 
of the work in which he is found to engage; in the long 
and tireless strolls he is seen to take along the banks 
of lonely rivers ; in leaving his horse to fatten in its 
stall while, all oblivious to the appearance of the thing, 
heAvill trudge for miles over a country road to visit a 
patient, or having in view, not unlikely, the single object 
of a draught from a way-side spring ; or it may be that 
the disposition shows itself in the seeking of odd and 
out-of-the-way sorts of places. Indeed, myself may not 
deny that his eloquence has seduced even the master 
more than once into places which, if not unbecoming 
the dignity of gray hairs, have yet hardly been in 
keeping with them. Had Lysias known Auerbach, he 
would undoubtedly have been found often enough in 
his cellar.* 

As concerns the wife, who, an observer cannot fail 
to see, is the balance-wheel in the character of the 
couple, — that is, she is a centre of gravity so inviting 
that it quite overbalances the centrifugal which lives 
in the natural inclinations of the husband, — I have 
really no words good enough for her praises. Lysias 
was right, ''All the virtues and charms live in her." 
Assuredly, had the boy searched the world over he 
would have found no more congenial or more fitting 
espousal. I never tire in looking from my corner on 
her sweet face, nor in listening to a voice which I 
may not compare with anything less refined than that 
cooing with which the dove invites its mate. 

*■ Goethe's Faust. 



L YSIAS. 1 73 

Economical of habit, and a manager by education, 
Lysias has conie, at quite an early period in life, to the 
possession of such comfortable means as allow of his 
consulting inclination rather than purse: hence the 
life he leads appears in the sight of the world what in 
every sense of the word it is in reality, an easy one. 
For his success, however, he certainly is in no way 
indebted to anybody but himself; the meaning of his 
independence lies in his having worked and saved, — 
*' in having found his niche," as he says, "and in re- 
maining constant to it." True it is, he will not allow 
that he has ever labored; but this is because he calls 
that play which others call work. ** How can a thing 
be work," he queries, *' when in it is found one's 
pleasure ?' ' Undeniably, Lysias was fortunate, or other- 
wise it was an exercise of great good sense in finding 
for himself a path around which has bloomed, and 
where still continues to bloom, the meaning of his 
nature. 

About clubs, and the many other matters which are 
apt to consume money faster than most men are able 
to make it, he knows so little that I am doubtful if even 
he might find himself able to give names to the evils; 
certain it is that his bohemianism leans not towards any 
of these things, for while he would not be proof against 
an Auerbach's cellar, which is, I suppose, a club in a 
certain sort of a way, yet he would be found there a 
student of its mystic lore rather than as a consumer of 
its beer. 

A philosopher by training, Lysias's manner of living 
corresponds with his means. Like Lysander, he knows 
too much to burden himself with unnecessary cares; 



174 LYSIAS, 

hence his establishment is found so ordered that it runs 
on a manner of tramway that has least of friction in it ; 
certainly he is no scullion to his own kitchen, nor does 
the number of his servants lay him under imputation of 
being a slave to coadjutors. As the furniture of his 
house is concerned, while it is comfortable enough, it 
is very far from being too fine for use ; indeed, I doubt 
not that many of the fashionables who go to him for 
service come away with an impression that it scarcely 
corresponds with his standing. I have myself, indeed, 
heard as much suggested. 

Lysias has oftenest on his lips that advice given by 
Pittacus to the Atarnean, ^^ Mind your own^ In ad- 
hering to this rule are to be found, he thinks, the success 
and comfort of men's lives. Certain it is he makes it 
the custom of his own. I doubt if ever, in a single 
instance, he lias been heard to criticise the actions of 
his fellows. Mankind, he avows, are to-day as Soc- 
rates found the people of the Athenian age. Who 
is most ignorant about a matter is readiest with an 
opinion ; who is least able to withdraw a hook from his 
lip is quickest in jumping at a bait ; he whose skill is 
smallest in unloosing his neck from a noose is nimblest 
in putting his head through the loop. Also is he not 
without the penetration to perceive, as I am very sure, 
that fault-finding is a sign either of very great weakness 
or of very great inexperience. How can a man find 
fault, he queries, when conscious that himself is vulnera- 
ble? or how criticise, when knowing to his own imper- 
fections? He smiles continuously at the readiness of 
men to pronounce on good or on evil, knowing there 
is no one of the race that is even perceptive enough to 



Z YSIAS. 



175 



distinguish between such opposite colors as white and 
black ; the readiest pronouncing both to be of one 
shade where these happen to be met with in the dark- 
ness of an unlighted room. 

I think it would not be right to leave at least one or 
two words unspoken about the housewifely virtues of 
Elvira. I put it to her credit that no other home into 
which I have ever entered has its affairs go on with as 
little commotion. I infer that her rooms, like the rooms 
of other people, require occasionally to be dusted and 
burnished ; that the fire of her grates, like the fire of 
other people's grates, is occasionally found burning 
low, perhaps burned out ', but assuredly it is the case 
that no burnishing is ever seen being done; it is the 
declaration of Lysias that the grates have never been 
seen by him below the cheerful point. 

Two servants are kept by Elvira, and these, from 
the family-like aspect they present, have been in the 
house, I presume, since its foundation. Certainly they 
look no less like fixtures than any other of the most 
stable things of the establishment. I infer, from the 
actions of these servants, that they have been made to 
understand that what is the common good is their good. 
Indeed, the endeavor to impress this is so persistently 
made by Elvira that I am doubtful if the rarest viand 
ever seen in the dining-room was not at the same time 
to be met with in the kitchen ; while assuredly I am 
able to recall no instance of rejoicing up stairs when 
jollity has not abounded down. 

Another great virtue that I set down to the credit of 
the wife is her tidiness ; morning alike with evening 
she is to be found in such manner of dress as becomes 



Hi 

jy6 LVS/AS. 

her occupation for the time, the season, and herself. 
Lysias has never been made to blush, however unrea- 
sonable the hour at which, man-like, he has brought 
home a visitor. Indeed, so fresh-looking does the wife 
keep herself, and so necessary to the complement of 
what the husband deems his happiness, that one has 
no trouble in perceiving that here is a marriage knot 
which can do nothing else than tighten as its age 
advances. 

There is a little matter connected with this wedlock 
of Lysias and Elvira, which, as it s^ms to me to have 
had found in it a great deal of good, I will venture to 
intrude enough on the privacy of my friends to offer 
to some one to whom it may furnish a not unwelcome 
hint. Elvira had money, not much, yet enough for a 
woman's wants. When the marriage vows were spoken, 
it was found that the possessions of the wife belonged, 
in the sight of the law, to the husband ; a few words 
had converted the bride from an independent woman 
into a moneyless dependant. The little matter was 
this : so soon as transfers could be made, the right of 
possession was again reversed, Lysias being made the 
poor one, pecuniary independence being restored to 
Elvira. 

Lysias is often heard to aver that he considers the 
course pursued by him in this affair as amongst the best 
directed of his whole life ; for while often enough he 
convulses the risibilities of his wife by insisting on look- 
ing to see if the bottom of her pocket be not a hole — 
assuredly she has not the same economical habits as 
himself — yet to all others he confesses that to have a 
woman spend her own, and then come in saucy humil- 



L YSIAS. 



^11 



ity to a husband to make up deficiencies, is a pleasure 
that no man of even the most moderate means can 
afford to deny himself. "And then," says Lysias, 
**only think, a man cannot come to the meanness of 
robbing a woman of an estate worked for and left to 
her by others;" he puts it out of the power even of 
accident so to degrade him. 

The faith that lives in the household is one that ad- 
mits of very little confusion. Whether a Roman or a 
Protestant Peter holds the keys of heaven is a matter 
that I do not remember ever having heard alluded to in 
the family, much less discussed. God is God, that is 
all ; from God everything is received, to God every- 
thing is owing. Men and women are to look upon 
themselves as the children of God. Children require 
no dialecticians to make them understand what are the 
relations with a parent. 

The daily life of the family goes on as does life in 
general ; albeit the bright side is ever tried to be kept 
uppermost. Lysias is not in the ''weeping" sense a 
Heraclitus, and Elvira manifests little inclination to 
find herself converted into a Niobe. 

Do your best, lean on yourself; this, in a way, seems 
to be the doctrine. A misfortune of yesterday is let 
go with its day ; the uncertainties of to-morrow are not 
anticipated. A ride in the park, a swim in the sea, a 
stroll through the woods, — both husband and wife think 
these glorious things, and wonder what more could be 
put in the hour in which they are enjoyed. Lysias is 
often heard to say that to understand of the blessings 

H* 



178 LYSIAS. 

heaped on man by his Maker, it needs only that one 
have asthma for an hour or that he find himself on a 
ship for a day without fresh water. But I think the 
secret of the happiness of my young friends lies in 
something else. 

*' In what ? How do they manage to get anything out 
of a life which begins and ends in nothingness?" 

He who interrupts with this question is a cynical 
little man who is greatly admired by Lysias; one who 
is a not unfrequent sitter by his grate-side. What the 
bond is that unites the two I have never been able to 
discover. When together they certainly do little else 
than dispute; combating incessantly over the places 
rightfully to be occupied by a semicolon, about the 
use of the subjunctive mood, or it may be about some 
matter connected with conjunctions. Lysias says that 
he likes the man because he is honest. This reason I 
certainly do not dispute, for, having occasion to meet 
him occasionally at an office in which he is employed, 
I am led to entertain a conviction that he uses his 
breath, when on duty, as if to waste any portion of it 
was to rob the business of something that belongs to it. 

The abrupt question of the little man is quite of a 
piece with his character; he is not at all diffident 
about breaking in on a conversation ; indeed, his as- 
surance is equalled alone by one thing, as I must admit, 
and that is his knowledge ; he has a memory that is 
wonderful in its retentiveness, certainly one that would 
fully justify a caricaturist in delineating him as a body 
made up of a short pair of legs carrying a single bump- 
like head representing that faculty. Lysias excuses his 
straightforwardness in pronouncing the deficiency to 



LYSIAS. 



179 



lie in a lack of synonyms. ''He can't help it," he 
says; "he has no crooked words;" and this excuse, 
which looks plausible enough, I find myself urging 
in defence of the man when strangers are disposed 
to whisper in' my ear disagreeable reflections on his 
bluntness. 

I was about to answer the query of my friend's friend 
by reminding him that happiness, together with the 
fullest expression of philosophy, arises out of a putting 
of use before self, but remembering that day after day 
and year after year this man, whom Lysias calls a walking 
encyclopaedia, sits at his desk working, working, work- 
ing, never for the furtherance of his own reputation, 
but wholly and solely for the good name and fame of 
many who know or care too little about the service 
he does them even to inquire his name, I felt such 
response would not be in place ; not in place, however, 
only because he seems not to have found fulness, while 
being of all men that I have ever known the most self- 
abnegating. 

So I answered the little man after another manner. 
A man, I said, who uses the word ''nothingness," 
as applied to living, has certainly failed in catching 
the signification of life. True life, full living, consists 
in being dead to individuality. In this is the whole 
story. To die to self is to resurrect to God ; is to come 
to a meanings the immortality of which is as fixed as 
are the foundations of eternity. Individuality, I sug- 
gested, is to be looked on as the very bane of man's 
existence; it is a night-mare to which no one finds him- 
self able to stick, let him clutch and hold as he will; it 
slips from and eludes the grasp, even at the moment 



l8o LYSIAS. 

when mightiest efforts are being made to retain it. It 
is an expression of selfishness, and not at all allied with 
understanding. Once let this matter of individuality- 
be dropped, I said, and man is led to see as though 
scales had fallen from his eyes ; in an instant the mean- 
ing of himself stands demonstrated on the programme 
of life. 

The little man pointed to a flagstaff on a neighboring 
roof, and asked if such doctrine separated the meaning 
of a man from that of the pole. 

His own life, I suggested, was the answer to his 
question. As a staff is at its best when affording sup- 
port to that which is the meaning of its office, so man 
is found expressing his fulness when performing un- 
complainingly and unresistingly the work pertaining to 
a situation in which he finds himself. It is the virtue 
of a pole that it holds the flag to its place and pur- 
pose. A man who holds things up is doing nothing 
better. Not to worry about the reward, this is the 
great matter, I said ; a wise man leaves all that to the 
employer; and what he finds to be done he does; about 
what is to come after he leaves to that after. 

** And dies like a baboon," the little man said. 

Dies like a baboon, if you please, I answered. 

The little man evidently had not caught my mean- 
ing, for he repeated himself in saying that he failed to 
see how, according to such doctrine, men differed from 
wooden or iron machines. How did they differ? he 
asked. 

The answer to this was not difficult to make. Men, 
I said, are in a state of constant perplexity, simply be- 
cause of troubling themselves about a thing which con- 



LYSIAS, l8i 

cerns the mortal not more than it does machines in 
general : namely, next. What is next ? Who knows 
anything about next ? Who has ever been able to learn 
anything about it ? Who needs to learn anything about 
it? The present is to be esteemed as the all; it is all 
because it has for the thing which lives in it the mean- 
ing of its office; of its intention. The present is for- 
ever. A man lives, never yesterday, never to-morrow, 
never in a coming moment, but now. 

The little man suggested that chaos would soon 
come if such doctrine were taught the masses. Some- 
thing very like these were the words he used, — I recall 
them because of his speaking with an earnestness not 
at all common to him. **An ignorant man is kept in 
a state of endurable decency," he said, "only when he 
is made to feel that sin means for him hell, and that 
the meaning of hell lies in a burning, unquenchable 
brimstone, which is the share of every one that gets 
into perdition. This holds them." If I remember 
rightly, he suggested, in the connection, that Plato 
knew less about governing men than the most ignorant 
of country priests. As for the younger Dionysius, who 
gave the Philosopher a people on whom to try his fool- 
ish scheme of a republic to be governed by the innate 
nobility residing in men, he doubted, he said, if the 
average of his common sense was any less than that 
possessed by the broad-headed. The man, as I have 
hinted, is not at all modest in criticising the opinions 
and actions of the great. 

Allowing an excitement which showed itself to 
subside, I remarked, suggestively, that the religious 
Spinoza and the critic Oldenberg had long ago gone 
i6 



1 82 LYSIAS. 

over this ground ; that the good Jew had expressed 
profoundest commiseration for the man who understood 
so little of the meaning of life as to live it out in an 
eye-service. 

"What did I mean by eye-service?" he asked. 

Simply, I replied, the same as is meant when speak- 
ing of a servant who has not enough of the man found 
in him to restrain him from cheating an employer of 
what belongs to the relation j requiring that the eye of 
the master be ever upon him. A man the reverse of 
himself, I could not help but add ; for while I do not 
particularly admire, I yet respect, the little man. 

** Better stick to the doctrines taught for the past 
eighteen hundred years," he suggested. 

He had confounded the Mosaic with the Christian 
age ; indeed, had quite overlooked, for the moment, 
that it was the Law-giver who taught, *'An eye for an 
eye, and a tooth for a tooth." 

Just so, I replied. It is the Christian doctrine of 
which I set myself up as a humble advocate. A man 
is to be such Nothingness, as individuality is concerned, 
that he will hesitate as little in giving the coat as in 
letting the cloak go. Man is to find examples for his 
actions in the sun, in the rain, in the wheat-head. He 
is to produce ; is to give ; concerning himself nothing 
at all about the why or the wherefore. 

He said he could see nothing at all in such meaning 
of life ; it out-materialized, he suggested, materialism 
itself. If that was all, better for man to be born a 
wheat-head at once. 

I ventured to suggest that men were made out of 
wheat-heads. 



LYSIAS. 183 

'*And you would like to add, I suppose," the little 
man remarked, ** that wheat-heads are found to come 
to a noble use through metamorphosis." 

Precisely, I agreed; and as for myself, I propose, 
I said, to go on developing my ripeness, trusting God 
in the matters of what the use and significance of the 
fruit may be. 

I simply added that the nothingness to which he 
alluded had for Lysias and Elvira the meaning of 
wholeness ; that both had come to understand full well 
that caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly, even though 
so unlike, are yet one and the same thing. 

The little man was evidently struck by the illustra- 
tion ; he raised his eyes from some pictures at which 
he had been looking, and asked if I thought the cater- 
pillar recognized its individuality in the butterfly's. 
But I left the question with him, knowing full well that 
he would think it over long and closely, and that 
through such thinking he would be the most likely to 
come to an apprehension of what I meant. 



XII. 

AT HOME. 

A GREAT favorite with Elvira is a certain quiet and 
staid gentleman who each evening spends an hour 
at the grate-side as he makes his way homeward from 
an office where all day he is employed in clerkly duties, 
to the chamber where half of every night is spent in 
writing out quaint fancies which, through the books he 
has given out, all may enjoy with him.* 

Unselfish, for he might not be otherwise, is the 
author through whose glebe runs the river of genius. 
What is given forth is in reality simply that which 
passes over him as over the face of a reflecting surface. 
How the good in its plenteousness comes, and whence, 
he may as little comprehend as do the multitude who 
partake with him of the miraculous good. How much 
we all admire this quiet clerk of the India House ! 
Lysias likens what he says to clear-running spring- 
water ; nothing the worse, as he suggests, because one's 
lips get it from what some are pleased to call a cracked 
pitcher. 

Yes, like spring-water indeed ; its life-giving 

qualities gathered among the trees and flowers and 
white pebbles of the mountain-side ; so much that is 

* Charles Lamb. 
184 



AT HOME. 185 

refreshing ; no India House can keep a soul from dis- 
porting itself on Olympus. No wonder that the clerk 
is not less to us than that which is the least part of 
him, Elia. 

So like the water of a spring which, being 

gathered into a reservoir, is made to run over the dirty 
streets of a town ; washing away garbage, drowning 
out disagreeable odors. It is a blessed thing, says 
Lysias, to find one's self an almoner; to have some- 
thing to give that others want. 

It is to me a pleasant sight, as I sit watching quietly 
in my corner, to see how the heart of the wife goes out 
towards the clerical-looking black-coated little clerk. 
He tells her, while his eyes twinkle in gratification, 
about the well days of that poor invalid he so inces- 
santly looks after ; asks her about jellies and jams ; 
discusses the prophylaxis of woolen garments; weeps, 
as a stranger, with maladroit expression, may happen 
to drop a word about asylums. 

Surely, says Elvira, here is a hero in a double sense : 
for what man, save this one, has been found to count 
his time, his pleasure, ay, even his very life, as be- 
longing exclusively to another, and that other only — 
only a poor half-crazy sister? I doubt not that the 
wife is as much in love with the unselfish nature of the 
brother as she is with the reflective power which indi- 
cates the genius. And what else in truth is it but 

the compassion of the humanitarian that is the charm 
of Elia ? One and the same are the dreary walk whose 
end is the hospital gate, and that tender sympathy 
which shows itself in every word spoken to suffering 
chimney-sweep, beggar, or convict. 
16* 



1 86 AT HOME. 

The clerk is polite and considerate, but Elvira insists 
that he is not to be denied in her house the solace of 
his favorite Oronoko. What else has he ? she asks. It 
was not strange that one day she brought home pipes 
enough to last for a year, and tobacco in proportion. 
It is worth very much more, she thinks, and we agree 
with her, than the cost of airing a room, to see the 
calm of the expressive face as the clouds of smoke shut 
out disagreeable remembrances of invoice books and 
indigo accounts. 

It seems, too, to require smoke to bring out the genius 
of Elia ; as if indeed without the cloud there was over- 
much light to show anything, or as if it required the 
spirit of the weed to exorcise that of the desk. Cer- 
tainly the pipe precedes the talk always; but when the 
tobacco is burned out, when the story commences, how 
great is the compensation for the waiting ! A rare hour 
indeed is it in which the clerk gossips about those that 
he loves and whom, in turn, he makes us love. Where 
better than from him do we learn the meaning of 
measuring? What a broad charity he has! How 
much that is good and enjoyable does he see in every- 
thing ! He it is who teaches us how to estimate the 
authors that write for us. We are not to be disap- 
pointed in a Heywood because of the absence of that 
which is the strength of Coleridge. Nor are we to ex- 
pect to find in the deep sea of Burton's Melancholy the 
humor that floats over the surface of Rare Ben Jonson. 

*'Yes, yes," says the clerk, comparing the sonnets 
of Sir Philip Sidney with the similar productions of 
Milton, "they do fall below the plain moral dignity, 
the sanctity, and high yet modest spirit of self-approval 



AT HOME. 187 

of Milton ; but how different the circumstances of the 
composition ! Who is to expect the lover of Stella to 
write with the philosophy of the Graybeard ? Penelope 
herself would have scouted the verses as being only cold 
words." 

*' Listen," he says : '* is he not a manly poet? 

• I never drank of Aganippe's well, 
Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit, 
And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell, 
v-:- «■ * * «- 

But — God wot — this I swear by blackest brook of ... , 
I am no pick -purse of another's wit. 
How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease 
My thoughts I speak, and what I speak doth flow 
In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please? 
Guess me the cause — what is it thus? — fye, no. 
Or so — much less. How then? Sure this it is : 
My lips are sweet ; inspired with Stella's kiss.' " 

We were laughing about Mrs. Conrady. The clerk 
interrupts. *' No one can say of Mrs. Conrady's coun- 
tenance that it would be better if she had but a nose. 
It is impossible to pull her to pieces in this manner. 
We have seen the most malicious beauties of her own 
sex baffled in the attempt at a selection. The touf- 
e7ise77tble defies particularizing. It is too complete — 
too consistent, as we may say — to admit of these in- 
vidious reservations. It is not as if some Apelles had 
picked out here a lip, and there a chin, out of the 
collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It 
is a symmetrical whole. We challenge the minutest 
connoisseur to cavil at any part or parcel of the coun- 
tenance in question ; to say that this, or that, is im- 
properly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, 



1 88 AT HOME. 

no less than is affirmed of beauty, is the result of har- 
mony. No one ever saw Mrs. Conrady without pro- 
nouncing her to be the plainest woman that he ever 
met in the course of his life." 

'''That handsome is as handsome does/ is not a 
proverb that can be used by those who have seen 
Mrs. Conrady. 

"The soul, if we may believe Plotinus, is a ray from 
the celestial beauty. As she partakes more or less of 
this heavenly light, she informs with corresponding 
character the fleshly tenement which she chooses, and 
frames to herself a suitable mansion. 

" All which only proves that the soul of Mrs. Conrady 
in her pre-existent state was no great judge of archi- 
tecture. 

"To the same effect, in a hymn in honor of Beauty, 
divine Spenser //^/^/^/s/;?^ sings, — 

' Every spirit as it is more pure, 



And hath in it the more of heavenly hght, 
So it the fairer body doth procure 
To habit in, and it more fairly dight 
With cheerful grace and amiable sight. 
For of the soul the body form doth take ; 
For soul is form, and doth the body make. 

"But Spenser, it is clear, never saw Mrs. Conrady. 

"These poets, we find, are no safe guides in philoso- 
phy; for here in his very next stanza but one is a 
saving clause, which throws us all out again, and leaves 
us as much to seek as ever: — 

' Yet oft it falls, that many a gentle mind 
Dwells in deformed tabernacle drowned, 
Either by chance, against the course of kind, 



AT HOME. 189 

Or through unaptness in the substance found, 
Which it assumed of some stubborn ground, 
That will not yield unto her form's direction, 
But is performed with some foul imperfection.' 

'' From which it would follow that Spenser had 

seen somebody like Mrs. Conrady." 

The clerk was in a talking mood; he went on for an 
hour, starting up to go only when he found himself no 
longer able to get smoke from the ashes of his pipe. 

Elvira is not unfamiliar with '' the Bachelor's Com- 
plaint," but then she will always persist in denying that 
it is Elia who is the bachelor. **Look," she says, *'is 
it not plain that our Elia was merely trying the pen of 
Addison?" and we all are compelled to admit that the 
Essay is rather after the style of the Spectator than 
after that of the clerk. 

'*It is to be suggested," says Lysias, *' that this disa- 
greeable Essay was an attempt of its writer to reconcile 
himself to the loss of that imaginary Celia, or Cam- 
paspe, or Lendamira, as name is found for her by the 
friend and confidant Barry Cornwall." 

"What matters what?" contends Elvira. "Who, 
at any rate, has such right to grumble and to find fault 
as a poor disconsolate bachelor?" 

It is the friend Hazlitt who smiles so benignantly 
on the pretty speaker. "Meant it all," he declares. 
" Ah ! if you could but see him at our Thursday evening 
parties. What choice venom ! what a keen, laughing, 
hair-brained vein of homefelt truth ! the most pro- 
voking, the most witty and sensible of men. Scalds 
you with a jest, probes a question with a play upon 
words. ' ' 



190 AT HOME. 

But Elvira is not to be convinced. He has said 
himself, she makes answer, " that truth is too precious 
to be wasted on everybody," and she retires into a 
shell of security when she repeats that other saying, 
** I value myself on being a matter-of-lie man." *' Of 
course," cries the charming doubter. *' Is so sedate 
a gentleman to be expected to turn spooney and show 
his heart to quibblers as bald of true joy as himself? Not 
he!" Elvira reads clearly the wife sentiment which 
everywhere shows itself in the tenderness bestowed upon 
the sister. But then, again, how may she, who is the 
most happy of happy matrons, do otherwise than be- 
lieve that it is all a matter of lie when a bachelor 
attempts to turn into ridicule what he calls the assump- 
tions and pretensions of the heart-rich Benedick? 
''Why, wealth shows for itself," she suggests; "and 
what is the sense in saying that a rich thing is rich?" 

The clerk, it is to be admitted, is not always just 
exactly the same. What man is? But when the room 
is full of smoke, and he is found in a talking humor, 
we listen eagerly, and if he says sharp things, or things 
disagreeable to us, we fail not to remember that there 
is much to worry and to make him sad — ^perchance 
enough to render him at times satirical, if not indeed 
misanthropic. 

But never is Elvira so well satisfied with Elia as when 
he gets in the way of reflections begotten of "Old 
China." Not that she cares a jot for the courtly man- 
darin — the traditional courtly mandsirin— handing tea 
to a lady from a salver, and not that she cares any 
more for the disputed perspective, — whether lady and 
mandarin are at proper distance for the office of tea- 



AT HOME. 



191 



handing, or whether so many as a dozen miles separate 
them. 

I whispered into the ear of the little man with the 
big memory, who happened to be seated next me, as 
Elvira was talking about this same china and about the 
pleasures that may be found to reside in poverty, that 
our pretty befurbelowed hostess was, in her way, a 
"Bridget;" but the plain-speaking dog with his single 
bark pronounced the thing bosh, — that was his word, 
— asserting that it is simply ridiculous in what he calls 
rich people to apostrophize Poverty. And this inter- 
ruption, which just this moment comes back to me, 
reminds me of what is an unwavering conviction, 
namely, that the poetry of poverty is no more to be 
felt by a poor man — one who was born poor and has 
remained so — than is the same man capable of under- 
standing the responsibilities of riches. Why, it has 
happened to myself, not once, but a score of times, 
to see a charming Elvira brought from a parlor to a 
kitchen, yet always carrying the aesthetics with her. I 
have seen such so metamorphose the little side-yard 
of a ten-by-twelve village home that former occupants 
have found themselves gaping with open mouth and 
wonder-staring eyes at the Aladdin-like transformation. 
Hear a clown talk of a sunset, and then turn to the 
poetry of him whose taste has fed itself out of the glory 
which at evening-tide lives over the Italian sea. The 
little man has big prejudices, and they interfere with 
his outlook. 

Lysias had overheard the words. ''I have had a 
good deal of experience," he said, ''with your poor 
class, and know the people, as a rule, to be quite in- 



192 AT HOME. 

capable of being made comfortable." (He was for- 
merly the owner of many small houses.) ^' They unmake 
faster than taste and a desire to serve them can make; 
give them all you have, and they beg for more; ask for 
your own, and they revile you; the lack of appreciation 
of favors done them by the prudent and consequently 
the thriving part of a community is unaccountable, even 
allowing for the stolidness of ignorance ; they receive 
and accept every good as a right, and denounce Provi- 
dence not less than men for ills begotten of their shift- 
lessness. Only let the hands of the wealthy workers 
be withdrawn from beneath them, and under the waters 
of the marsh they would go, heels and neck, soon 
enough." Lysias was getting excited. I turned from 
him to the wife. 

It was no use, however, this attempt to change the 
current of his thought; he had something else to say, 
and was not to be interrupted. *' It is disgusting," he 
went on, '* simply disgusting, to listen to a politician 
with wit or honesty too minute to be discovered by aid 
of a microscope, haranguing a crowd of improvidents on 
the impositions practiced by capital. A pity is it that 
a whip could not be put in every honest hand to lash 
the rascals naked through the world." 

**But there is trouble," said the little man; "men 
must have bread, or else starve." 

"Of course they must have bread, or else starve," 
retorted Lysias; " but who is to give it to them ? Is a 
decent man, one who has worked hard and saved, to 
rob his children that life may be kept in carcasses too 
lazy to do anything else but lean against other men's 
posts? Why, only look at the complainers; ten, if not 



AT HOME. 



193 



a dozen of them, clamoring for work under the shade 
of a mill-roof, when it is impossible for the owner to 
find places for half the number. As many others insist 
on trundling barrows over city streets, where two are 
more than enough to do the wheeling. A million 
middle-men scatter themselves broadcast over the land, 
thrusting their locust-like appetites between producer 
and consumer, eating so much out of every crop that 
little enough is left either to pay him who has worked 
or to allow equivalent to him who has money with 
which to buy. On every avenue of the cities are to be 
found a host of sturdy men wasting away their time in 
doing women's work ; dealing in pins, or else measur- 
ing ribbons over counters. Wherever is to be found a 
hole in a wall big enough to hold a bottle, there you are 
sure to meet with some one of the malcontents, ready, 
spider-like, to pounce upon and suck out the life-blood 
of him who is silly enough to get within the meshes of 
his net. No, no ; a doctor sees too much of such peo- 
ple to be easily imposed on. At the back door of the 
factories in which these are struggling with each other 
to endure what they are pleased to call the primeval 
curse ; beyond the pave on which they are crowding 
each other; away from the needles and tape, and within 
sight, almost, of the holes in the walls, there are un- 
counted acres and untold places for comfortable and 
independent living. There is a sun true to its pur- 
pose as is the God himself, there are rains to water, and 
there is a life in the soil which will disappoint no man 
who trusts in it. Shall men then complain and deem 
themselves ill used because that they tarry in a land 
in which all the corn has been eaten ? or because that 
K 17 



194 



AT HOME. 



they will not leave channels from which the streams 
have passed out ? Shall the woman-man measure his 
tape or commend his needle-packages when no cus- 
tomers stand in front of his counter? or shall he of 
the bottle hope to keep fat in his mesh when all the 
blood has been consumed ?" 

The little man again used the word "bosh." He 
desired to know, he said, how the middle-men, the pin- 
sellers and the pourers-out from the bottle, were to get 
amongst the bread-growing acres and under the feeding 
rays of a fructifying sun. 

Lysias had worked himself up to a very unusual state 
of excitement. '' The middle-men," he said, ** and the 
pin-sellers, and the bottle-holders, must suffer, and in- 
dustrious men must suffer with them ; all for the reason 
that fathers were fools, enough to think that working 
hand in hand with God was not quite good enough for 
the sons." Lysias had not forgotten his teachings. 

**Yes," I said, anxious to turn the drift of his reflec- 
tions : 

" A day there was, ere England's griefs began, 
When every rood of ground maintained its man." 



(( 



Put it in your pipe and smoke over it," said 
Lysias, turning to the little man: *'the story is all in 
that." 

The little man said he had one more question to ask : 
** Would Lysras tell him in what category a doctor 
belonged? Was a doctor a producer, or was he a mid- 
dle-man?" He suggested that he had met doctors 
whose appetites could not be called small. 

I must say that I thought the thrust a sharp one. 



AT HOME. 



195 



Lysias, with a shrug of the shoulders, turned upon his 
heel. 

After a few moments of calm, the conversation got 
back to the subject of the pleasures of restricted means. 
*'Elia understands it," said Elvira: **hear what he 
says : 

a <when you came home with twenty apologies for 
laying out a less number of shillings upon that print 
after Lionardo, which we christened the Lady Blanch ; 
when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the 
money — and thought of the money, and looked again 
at the picture — was there no pleasure in being a poor 
man ? Now, you have nothing to do but walk into 
Colnaghi's and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. Yet 
do you?'" 

It is delightful to listen to the dear creature as she 
runs on, taking the very words out of the mouth of 
the clerk. *'Yes, the pleasant carriage-rides into the 
country, enjoyed so much because so rare ; the river 
excursion, the cost counted a week ahead ; the day 
taken from business, that for ten delightful hours bab- 
bling brooks may add sweet songs to the strains of the 
poets ] and then the simple little repast for which a 
rustic table is prepared with so much ado, so much run- 
ning to and fro. A cake with more of molasses than 
butter in it ; cold lamb in place of tongue ; the pickled 
cucumber pronounced so much better than the olive; 
the water of the spring seen to be of brighter sparkle 
than wine." 

Elvira loves nothing better than to talk about what 
she calls her ''little Trianon." This is a farm the 
gates of which are shut, like that other Trianon of 



196 AT HOME, 

France, on luxury and fashion, and where the dainty 
thing, with her feet encased in calf-skin, trundles her 
own wheelbarrow and wields her own hoe. He who 
has the good fortune to be invited to Trianon will not 
be unapt to find himself awakened in the morning by 
the **So ho" of the pretty rustic as she calls the cow 
from the meadow, as at breakfast he will be sure to 
eat of yellow grass-flavored butter, which has been pad- 
dled into rolls by the hands looking to-night so dainty 
and so good-for-nothing — except to set off the pretty 
stones which find ornament in that they were designed 
to beautify. 

Elvira asks the little man if he has ever enjoyed an 
early morning hour hoeing potatoes or cabbages, or 
cleaning the edges of a walk or a drive. "Why, look," 
she says; "a hoe may be dull, and the hoer may be 
duller, but use brightens the blade and sharpens it. 
Is not a hoe itself, thrown down, and lying unem- 
ployed by the grassy pathway, suggestive of uncon- 
sidered weeds growing in the moral flower-bed? What 
may come of an uneven, unkempt border to a walk or 
a drive-way, but a reminder of the ill variations in one's 
own life ? While to pick up a hoe, and with it to root 
and weed out ill growths, to make with it lines of beauty, 
and consequently of harmony, — might this be suggest- 
ive of aught else than that higher training which serves 
to convert an ugly nature into a pretty one? Must it 
not be with life-weeds as it is with garden-weeds, and 
with life- walks as it is with lawn -walks? — every weed cut 
away and every line harmonized, may this be else than 
so much in the way of improvement ?" 

" The lesson of lessons, the change of changes," sug- 



AT HOME. 



197 



gested a grave thinker, who sits much with us, ''the 
religious change, comes not through hoes and hoeing, 
not to the possessor of a Trianon any more than to him 
from whom high-walled streets shut out the lessons of 
nature, but is a special gift from above, a reflection 
upon man of that grace and love which have suffered, 
the one for the many.'* 

** Assuredly," replies the farmeress, *' I have sat too 
long by the grate-side to deny any mystery; yet surely 
it is not to be doubted that as one plucks and casts 
away weeds the garden is rendered thereby the cleaner ;, 
and as pathways are trimmed and bordered, so unde- 
niably through the trimming are these rendered the 
more sightly." Little doubt had she, she said, that 
the increase of the garden came neither of Paul nor of 
ApoUos, but not more doubt had she of a necessity for 
the planting and watering. 

''Weeds," suggested the thinker, "are the natural 
and necessary growth of virgin soils; indeed, weeds con- 
stitute the soil, and a field which, left to itself, produces 
not weeds, has in it none of the ability to come to the 
production of bread. But soil of and in itself out- 
grows that which is its origin : from the weeds grow 
grains, the nutrition for the higher comes through the 
lower. So, in the proper time, come the hoer and the 
pruner; and now weeds, being things out of place, are 
wisely plucked up and cast away. And not unlike to 
weeds are the virtues ; being of evil or of good import 
according as we find them. The natural man is not 
unlike the natural soil : his circumstances and relations 
are to be understood before is extended to him either 
commendation or condemnation. Brute force, which 
17* 



198 



AT HOME. 



shows all muscle and bone, ill though it seem to-day, 
did yesterday crush the head of the wild beast and 
trample in the dust the head of the serpent ; yester- 
day it felled forests, and made of water-courses places 
for cities. To-day no lions are in the way, no wood 
covers the fields of the husbandman, and he who yes- 
terday might have found neither peace nor safety in 
any habitation, to-day, because of that which was yes- 
terday, flourishes and prospers." 

It is here, as in the middle of most conversations, 
that an interruption occurs, which breaks up the even- 
ing. 



XIII. 

AT HOME. 

THE conversation was concerning books. 
A book, I said, is a man in the mood and educa- 
tion in which the author writes ; but a book has advan- 
tages over him who utters it, inasmuch as in its person- 
ality it becomes ubiquitous, being able to be in many- 
places at the same time ; to converse in tongues un- 
known to the original ; to adapt its mood to him with 
whom it holds colloquy ; and to stop its speech, even 
in that moment in which what it has to say ceases to 
interest. 

As well is it the virtue of a book that it may 

exhibit its author to an advantage not always to be 
seen in his personnel ; that it may show forth peculiari- 
ties, ostentation or even affectation, without an offence 
that can be taken for insult ; that it is found able to 
make itself quite as much at home in a hut as in a 
palace ; that it is little disturbed whether sooty hands 
mar its fair belongings or its leaves find dainty turning 
by perfumed and jewelled fingers ; that it tells its les- 
sons as earnestly by the wayside as in the library ; that 
what it once is seen to be, that it remains ; that if it 
is of good import, then, being like a good man dead, 

199 



200 ^T HOME, 

one may in all safety praise and commend, as no 
change may possibly come to disappoint or to undo. 

It is also to the advantage of a book that it is 

ever ready to make acquaintance with him who de- 
sires introduction ; it is greatly its advantage over the 
author, very greatly, that it is never the first to weary 
of comradeship ; that if desired it will stay in the home 
of a new friend, or with like willingness go to the field 
or the workshop ; that, never tired of talking, it will 
tell over and again its story. A wonderful thing in- 
deed, through its instrumentality the highest and most 
virtuous of mankind are brought into companionship 
with the meanest and worst; are made ministers to 
necessities, instructors to inexperience. 

But there are bad authors, and of course bad 

books; yet of the two, he is the safer who comes direct 
to the acquaintance of the bad man rather than to that 
of his bad book, for of a certainty shall the one not 
fail either sooner or later to show the cloven nature of 
his foot, while the other may be so cloaked and hooded, 
so seductively cloaked and hooded, that a Juan makes 
his way where a Byron might not be tolerated. 

Elvira glances nervously at the rows of volumes 
lining the shelves of the library, and with maternal 
solicitude draws close to her side a noble-faced boy, 
whose every feature is so like her own. ''What shall 
he read?" she asks. 

That is a question, I said, that is found, after a cer- 
tain way, to answer itself. One reads according to 
his taste. 

''But taste," interrupted the mother, "is a thing 
to be made." 



AT HOME. 20I 

Assuredly, I answered. Men are like trees, but boys 
are like saplings; a tree is straight or it is crooked, it 
is gnarled or it is clean, according to what have been 
the influences associated with the scion. 

"But does it not seem a pity," said Elvira, "that 
we are compelled to mar the fair face of a virgin field? 
What is so attractive as a boy in the freshness of an 
uninstructed simplicity?" 

Yet, I said, if it is expected to get grain out of a 
field the plough must be used, even though it is the 
case that a plough is a thing that pierces and exposes 
and turns the inside out. 

"Exposing many things which do not add to the 
attractions of the place ploughed," said Lysias. 

True, I answered. Yet we must agree with Aris- 
totle, that an educated man is as much superior to one 
uneducated as are the living to the dead ; and cer- 
tainly we may not deny that a field comes first to its 
purpose only after harrow and hoe have passed over it 
and have obliterated what we are disposed to consider 
its fairness. 

"The subject of the education of a boy," said Lysias, 
" is one that at the present time is of greatest interest, 
both to Elvira and myself. With the good wife's per- 
mission I will light a pipe, and perhaps you will not 
object to giving us the benefit of your views on the 
subject." 

If I can afford you any aid, I replied, in the fulfil- 
ment of the task that lies before you, I shall be thank- 
ful that experience has made me somewhat acquainted 
with the subject. 

To begin with the beginning, I said, I shall expose 
1* 



202 AT HOME. 

a fault which happily has had no existence, as I well 
know, in the case of this family. I allude to that 
falsest of false kindness through which mothers unwit- 
tingly suffer the risk of destroying not only the com- 
fort of their children, but also, what is of quite as much 
consequence, the tranquillity and security of their 
own marriage relation. It is not to be denied, I 
said, and no one can be more cognizant to the fact 
than Lysias himself, that there are a multitude of 
women who turn slaves the moment their first child is 
born. 

Elvira smilingly nodded, implying that she under- 
stood. *'I gave the young Lysias here his first and 
only spanking," she said, "the day he was five months 
old ; it was a good one, and it has never had to be re- 
peated." 

Right, I said. I have seen a mother sitting hour 
after hour over a crying infant, losing sleep and 
health, the household all disturbed, myself made to get 
out of a warm bed to trudge over icy streets at mid- 
night, when the soporific to be prescribed was a good 
dose of oleum betulse — birch oil. 

"I suppose," interrupted Lysias, "that, like all 
other physicians who are properly versed in the thera- 
peutics of the profession, you have lost whole families 
as patients by displaying too much intelligence as to 
the wants of a baby?" 

Plenty of them, I replied. 

" It is unaccountable," said Elvira, " when measured 
by any rule of common sense ; among my own ac- 
quaintances I number one of just that kind of mothers; 
self-sacrificing, she names it, but I call it nonsensi- 



AT HOME, 203 

cally self-immolating ; when the child cries it must be 
hushed with' bribes and rocking — and sometimes it 
is rocked the night through ; when it slavers, the 
finest cambric is not too good to be torn by its pretty 
in-growing teeth. Baby waxes lusty and bad, mother 
grows lean and slatternly, husband lapses into a club 
man. There are no longer the pretty frills that once 
so bewitchingly adorned the prettier neck ; no longer 
the sweet scent of jasmine so seductive to the senses; 
no longer a springy form ready always for the pave or 
the phaeton; no longer curls rich as amber; but in 
place of these a wife whose movements are as draggy 
as her dress is dowdy, one who has no talk but that 
which discusses tooth-cutting and colicky stomachs, 
no odor sweeter than that of the stale slops found 
always abundantly over her person, the harp replaced 
by a nursery wash-tub, the bride by a frowzy nurse." 

Women of such little judgment, I interrupted, de- 
serve to have both bad babies and disappointed hus- 
bands. 

** Yes; and they have them," said Elvira. 

Lysias laughed. ''She is authority," he suggested, 
''on everything connected with marriage and babies. 
Look at her ; who would take her for the mother of so 
bouncing a stripling?" 

"Or of so good a one," interrupted the wife, her 
merry laugh ringing through the room. 

The boy nestled close to the mother's side. "Do I 
satisfy dear mamma?" he asked. "I try to." The 
answer made was a pretty tableau. 

"Yes," said Elvira, "the greatest miss that a wife 
can make is to place a child betwixt herself and her 



204 ^^ HOME. 

husband ; the turning around gets both spouse and 
baby out of place, and things out of place don't do 
well." 

And such turning around, I said, is not to be looked 
on as expressive of motherly love, but rather as indica- 
tive of wifely improvidence. When the pretty frills 
go, admiration is very likely to go with them. When 
music ceases at home, it is not unapt to be hearkened 
for elsewhere. 

"Neither," says Lysias, "as I very well know, is 
the right relation to be looked on as indicative of 
any lack of earnest attention to the child. It is only 
husband at the head of the table, baby at the foot." 

"Instead of baby all over it," said Elvira, taking 
up the sentence and finishing it. 

The only foundation, I said, which is capable of 
affording reliable support to a superstructure of manly 
greatness is virtue ; the laying of this begins with 
babyhood. Babies that have been allowed to have their 
own way, and thus commence with a layer of selfish- 
ness, are apt in after-life to feel shaky whenever a wind 
blows. 

" What about playfellows?" the mother asked. 

A most important matter, I replied, but so impossi- 
ble is it to keep a boy from meeting all kinds that one 
can do nothing else than submit to the risk. A boy 
who sees in his own home, however, the beauties of 
refinement is pretty safe from contamination by things 
low and vulgar. One accustomed to drink water from 
a goblet of shivering thinness is not apt to choose an 
earthen mug. Indeed, I am not certain, I said, but 
that it is well for a lad of a good bringing up that oc- 



A T HOME. 205 

casionally he be brought in contact with the rude and 
vile : they disgust him. 

''You think, then," said Lysias, "that a boy has 
to be pitted against his fellows and take his chances?" 

It is only a question of time, I replied. Pitting must 
come either sooner or later. 

The father knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "I 
am reminded," he said, "of a high-bred and very 
diffident boy, who was sent to a school that I once 
attended. His previous life had evidently been spent 
at a mother's apron-string ; he was delicate and timid 
to the degree of girlishness. Of course he was imposed 
on by all his schoolmates, and maltreated on the slight- 
est provocation. Such was the state of things for a 
couple of years, when, returning to the play-ground 
after an August vacation, he turned the tables com- 
pletely by fighting with a desperate abandon every one 
who attempted to cross his path. It was not long be- 
fore he was the most let-alone boy of the establishment. 
To-day he stands at the head of one of the largest 
manufacturing enterprises of the country." 

Yes ; the experience is a common one, I suggested. 
A parent may not give better advice to a son than that 
received by Laertes.* 

As to what is commonly called education, I con- 
tinued, were one assured of great longevity, a beginning 
would be with the classics ; but for the reason that fixed- 
ness is uncertain, experience directs that it is the part 



■-•• " Beware 
Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in. 
Bear 't that th" opposed may beware of thee." 

18 



2o6 AT HOME. 

of wisdom that a boy be started at the middle; getting 
his knowledge by delving both ways ; casting back- 
ward and looking forward. 

Lysias remarked that he was doubtful as to whether 
he had my meaning. 

English, I said, is not a language of itself, but a 
manner of speech made out of many tongues. It is 
starting a boy in the middle to commence with the 
alphabet of a modern vernacular. 

Did I like the manner in which the education of 
the lad Montaigne was commenced? Lysias asked. 

I give the father great credit for the judgment, I 
replied. 

*' How was it?" inquired the mother. 

A tutor was engaged, whose care it was to see that 
the pupil had no intercourse with his Gascon-speaking 
fellows ; Latin was the only language which the boy 
was allowed either to hear or use ; as a consequence it 
became a mother tongue to him. When only six years 
of age, Montaigne found himself possessed of a key to 
modern word-making. 

*'But we shall have to begin with an English founda- 
tion," Lysias said. *' We must not hope to rival the 
Gascon." 

There was a ring of the door-bell. The visitor was 
the little man, and he was not at all in a good humor. 
He had dropped in, he said, to have some more talk 
about poor people. 

A shade of red ran over the face of Lysias. I think 
he was conscious of having been betrayed into too 
great freedom of expression at the last meeting. I 
think, too, that the manner of the little man, on the 



AT HOME. 



207 



present occasion, was offensive to him, and that it 
angered him/ although if this latter were the case he 
commanded himself very well. 

*'We were talking about education," he said, re- 
plying to his guest, and desirous, apparently, of avoid- 
ing the other subject. 

''About education," said the little man; *' but I 
want to talk about pin-sellers and about bottle-men; 
about assumption and presumption." 

Lysias frowned. '*I would give," he said, ''with 
all willingness a good thousand dollars if I could appro- 
priate to my own use a small share of your assumption 
and presumption." 

The cynicism of the little man was fully aroused ; 
he quite lost an equilibrium which is a marked charac- 
teristic of his manner. " Humph I" he said, " nothing 
is easier ; you have only to keep your egotism for your 
tongue, instead of lavishing it so profusely on the pages 
of your books." 

"And suppose I should incline," answered Lysias, 
laughing immoderately, " to circulate a scandal about 
you?" 

"I would thank you," interrupted the little man, 
" if you would have it printed in some one of your 
volumes, as then there would be the least danger of my 
coming to any harm from it." 

"Admirable! admirable!" said Lysias. "What a 
pity it is not original !" 

The little man changed his tack. "Do you not 
know," he said, "that all that was spoken by you 
the other night, about middle-men, is nonsense and 
bosh ?" Bosh is a great word with the little man. 



2o8 ^'T HOME. 

"You call yourself a middle-man, I presume," said 
Lysias. 

''Certainly I do," answered the little man; ''and a 
doctor, high as he holds his head, is nothing better." 

" You suggested that same idea on the occasion of 
our last conversation," said Lysias. 

"Yes, and I repeat it," replied the little man; "the 
one sells pins, the other pills ; that is all the differ- 
ence." 

"Very well," said Lysias. " Your logic is unexcep- 
tionable; now about the deduction." 

"Very easily drawn," answered the little man. 
" Doctors ought to go to work raising corn, instead 
of thrusting their long arms between the slabs of 
other people's cribs." 

"And when the other people sicken and lie on their 
beds dying, the doctors, being busy in their fields, are 
to withhold their long arms from reaching out help." 

"You have hit the nail," replied the little man. 
" A doctor serves his kind and himself best by staying 
out of a field altogether. Pin-makers have no time to 
act as pin-sellers. You seem to have overlooked alto- 
gether the meaning of a man's relation with a com- 
munity in which he lives." 

"He has found it," said Lysias, turning to me. 
" Our friend has worked out the problem of 'the all 
and the nothingness' of individuality." 

"No shirking of the subject," said the little man. 
"Never mind individuality. I maintp.in that you 
talked nonsense the other night." 

"Do you eat potatoes at your house?" Lysias 
asked. 



AT HOME. 20C 

''Eat potatoes!" replied the little man; "certainly 
we eat potatoes. But what have potatoes to do with 
pin-sellers, or pin-sellers with potatoes?" 

'' How much a bushel ?" asked Lysias. 

The little man looked as if he thought he was being 
quizzed. "My cook," he said, " sees after the potatoes." 

"In the market," said Lysias, answering his own 
question, "one dollar and a quarter; at a farm where 
I raise them, about twenty cents." 

"Then all I have to say is," replied the little man, 
" you ought to be utterly ashamed of yourself for ask- 
ing so extortionate a profit." 

"And so I would be," answered Lysias, "were it 
not that only last week I disposed of all I had to sell 
for fifty cents the bushel." 

"And I bought," said the little man, "only last 
week, paying nearly three times that price." 

"Yes," said Lysias, "the middle-man, who sat in 
the shade of a counting-room, never handling a single 
one of the tubers, made not less than a clear profit of 
half a dollar on each bushel bought by you. I, who 
ploughed, planted, and cultivated, got a profit of thirty 
cents, and of this a portion was to be appropriated as 
interest on the money investment made in the farm." 

" You buy your butter, I believe," continued Lysias, 
"from ?" 

"Yes." 

" What does he charge you the pound ?" 

" Fifty or sixty cents, I believe." 

" On each Wednesday and Saturday, my farmer lays 
that same butter on his stall for jus,t half the price he 
is to receive for it." 

i8* 



2IO AT HOME. 

*'He is an extortionate dog!" exclaimed the little 
man, his choler rising; ''and he shall learn that I 
know his trade-marks of cost and profit." 

*' But we are straying from the subject," remarked 
Lysias. *'You want to hear about poor people, and 
you shall. I am just the one to come to for informa- 
tion. I was born with them, brought up among them ; 
indeed, I have myself known what it is to breakfast on 
a crust and sup on a bowl of soup." 

''Humph!" said the little man; "know as much 
about the thing as about all others." 

"Enough," retorted Lysias, "to tell you that in 
the great majority of instances the cause of suffering 
lies with the sufferer; that shiftlessness is the foundation- 
rock of communism ; that laziness is the key-stone of 
the grumbler's arch." 

" And what," asked the little man, "would you pro- 
nounce the key-stone of the arch of prosperity?" 

" Two pennies made before one is spent," answered 
Lysias. 

The little man had lighted a pipe and was puffing 
away vigorously ; he seemed to have been struck with 
a sudden thought. I think he was quite oblivious to 
the reply made to his question. Lysias tapped him on 
the shoulder. " I am going," he said, " to-morrow, to 
visit my properties; will you go along?" 

" Go where?" said the little man, aroused from his 
reverie. 

" To see after some poor people," answered Lysias, 
quizically. 

" Name the hour," said the little man. 

Bright and early in the morning I accompanied the 



AT HOME. 211 

twain. ** We will go first," suggested Lysias, " to the 
premises of one of my rich incumbents." 

The house we visited had fine rooms ; it was situated 
in the middle of a garden every available inch of which 
showed either flower, fruit, or vegetable. Along the 
sides of the fence, the rails and posts of which furnished 
the required support, were rows of blackberries, every 
bramble of which was laden with berries of the largest 
size. Long furrows extending from end to end of the 
yard gave promise of a full potato-bin for the winter. 
Tomatoes in abundance filled a corner plot. Egg- 
plants, two and three to a bush, were to be seen here and 
there in odd places. Rows of corn kept company with 
the potato-furrows, each stalk being courted by a cling- 
ing vine engaged in making bean-pods. It was a picture 
of thrift. Quite a broad and gracious smile overspread 
the face of the little man. " He would like," he said, 
'< to have a handful of the blackberries." 

'' Plenty of them, as you see," said Lysias, and it was 
but a little time before a great saucer-full was picked 
and handed him. 

While the little man sat under a tree, eating his fruit, 
Lysias gave him the history of what he saw. " My 
ownership of this place," he said, "resides in a mort- 
gage which just about half covers it ; four years ago it 
embraced everything." 

*' Did you sell the place without payment of any 
money down?" asked the little man. 

''Without the payment of a cent," answered Lysias. 
''Four years back, happening one day to make a pro- 
fessional visit to the family of its present owner, — he 
lived then in one of a row of sun-baked alley-hovels, — ■ 



212 AT HOME. 

I was struck with the air of superior neatness which 
made his little house so great a contrast to all the others 
of the row in which I had found myself. Another thing 
that struck me was a sense of manly independence ; no 
complaining, no finding fault, no comparing or con- 
trasting himself with other people ; the man was as poor 
as a church mouse, but gentleman was written all over 
him." 

^' Well?" said the little man. 

" Well, here was a chance to help two persons at one 
time. I wanted to get clear of a house, this man was 
greatly in need of one. He had no money to give, I 
was able to sell without it. He had probity and in- 
dustry, I had capital. In four more years the property 
will be wholly his; his, and his children's after him." 

The little man having finished his plate of fruit, Lysias 
said we would walk to a neighboring street. On this 
street, it was rather a court, there were quite a number 
of small houses, six of which belonged to my pupil. 
Entering the first, I involuntarily exclaimed. I think 
I never saw greater neatness. Ceilings white as lime 
could make them, walls as fresh as though the paper 
had been put on only yesterday. Everything like a 
new pin. 

"You have a good tenant here," I remarked. 

** Yes," said Lysias, **and does it not look as if the 
tenant had a good landlord?" 

I could not dispute it. 

''Come next door," said Lysias, thanking the tenant 
for the kind permission which had been accorded to 
look at the premises. 

The first greeting as the next door opened was a 



AT HOME. 



213 



complaint that a drain-pipe was stopped, and that the 
water was filling the cellar. 

'* And undermining the foundations of the house," 
suggested Lysias. 

** The cellar is half full," said the man. 

*' And how long," asked the landlord, "is it since 
the pipe failed to carry off the water?" 

''About two weeks," was the reply. '*The paper 
is loosening from all the walls; one of the children 
has been down sick of a catarrh on account of the wet. 
I don't think I ought to be asked any rent for this 
month." 

'' I believe," said the landlord, " that you are already 
five in arrears." 

" Yes," said the tenant ; ** times are very hard, and 
money is tight." 

''Not a doubt of it," said Lysias. "How much 
have you been compelled to lay out on account of medi- 
cines for the cold caught by your child through reason 
of this stopped drain?" 

" Seven dollars," said the tenant. "And I think it 
is only fair that you should refund it." 

" No doubt of that either," responded the landlord. 
" Seven dollars to begin with. And of course I am to 
pay for repapering the walls?" 

Had Lysias asked the man whether he was to pay 
for his own marketing, the surprise exhibited could not 
have been greater. 

Opening the cellar-door, we looked below : there 
was water enough, without doubt, and, to make matters 
worse, a great stone had fallen from the wall. Every 
hour was risking the stability of the house. "The cellar 



214 ^^ HOME. 

will have to be pumped out immediately," Lysias 
said, ''and the stone-mason sent for." 

''What stopped the drain?" he inquired, turning to 
the tenant. 

The tenant "didn't know; may-be a dishcloth had 
got in it." 

Reaching a piece of stout wire that was hanging from 
a nail in the fence, Lysias bent a hook on its end and 
gave it a single turn in the pipe ; the result was, first, a 
newspaper, which the wire had gone through ; second, 
a dishcloth, caught by the hook. Lysias afterwards 
told me that the cost to him of the stopped drain was 
forty dollars ; the rent — nearly half a year in arrears — 
was twelve dollars a month. 

The little man had not spoken a word. 

"Come across the street," said Lysias. The house 
into which we now went was vacant, — " a matter not to 
be wondered at," the little man said, " for it looks like 
a hog-pen." 

I think Lysias agreed with him ; I certainly did. 

"A poor man lived in it," said Lysias. " I will tell 
you the story." 

"Not till I get out of the smells he has left behind," 
said the little man, holding his nostrils tightly between 
his fingers. The house was a complete wreck ; window- 
glass was demolished, hinges broken from closets and 
doors, paper smeared with grease and torn in strips 
from the wall of every room ; the handles of the water- 
spigots wrenched off, as if the object had been the price 
they would bring as old brass ; floors quite as thick with 
filth as that of the place to which the little man had 
likened the premises. 



AT HOME. 



215 



"Must have received a good rent," said the little 
man, " to compensate for all the trouble and expense 
you will have here." 

We had stepped into the yard ; it was as bad outside 
as in ; the clothes-line posts had been dug up and con- 
sumed as kindling; nearly all the shingles from the roof 
of an out-house had gone the same way ; two or three 
cart-loads of ashes were piled up in a corner ; there was 
absolutely nothing but that was the reverse of what it 
should have been. 

Lysias lighted a cigar and handed a second to the 
little man. ''It requires," he said, ''that one have 
something in his mouth to keep back oaths. On one 
of the coldest of the earliest days of the last winter 
the man who has just moved out of this house came to 
me with the story that a heartless landlord was about to 
set him and his family upon the street on account of a 
paltry sum owing on his rent, — some four dollars, if I 
remember rightly. Pitying him very much, for the 
tale he told was a sad one, I handed him this money, 
and afterwards had him moved into the house the yard 
of which we stand in. Yesterday completed his ninth 
month of occupancy. He has told me a thousand lies, 
has made all kinds of excuses to keep from doing any 
little jobbing I might have on hand, has never paid a 
single penny of rent, and is now engaged in informing 
his old neighbors that all landlords are alike, that I am 
not a bit better than the rest of the lot." 

" A vagabond of the worst order," said the little man, 
all his ire aroused at the imposition. 

We walked around the corner. Lysias pointed out 
another of his houses: it was an establishment of pre- 



2i6 AT HOME. 

tension ; such a one as commands the higher order of 
tenants. "It was occupied all last winter," he said, 
*' by a politician. When rent was asked for, the excuse 
was ever ready that certain moneys expected had not yet 
been received ; next month, and next, and next, the rent 
would certainly be paid. This man was a gentleman : 
of course all men living in big houses are. One does 
not hesitate to oblige a gentleman, even though it is the 
case that taxes and water-rates deplete the property- 
owner's pocket. When the spring came," said Lysias, 
^' the gejitleman rnowtd between a Sunday and Monday, 
leaving to me the satisfaction of knowing that I had 
been laughed at for a credulous fool, besides affording 
me the pleasure of paying for the gas consumed by him 
during the time of occupancy." 

The little man buttoned his coat tightly, as though he 
felt himself in the neighborhood of thieves. "You are 
right," he said : " there is a ' poor class.' " 

But that very evening he returned to the attack. 
"I ani unable to see," he said, "why you place in a 
common category the thieves about whom you told us 
this morning, and the honest clerks, the mill-hands, and 
the trundlers of barrows, alluded to in your previous 
dissertation." 

"You can't see?" said Lysias. "Well, I will show 
you, or rather tell you. The first are knaves, the second 
fools." 

" Humph !" said the little man; " you are modest: 
being a middle-man, as you admit, you call yourself a 
fool." 

"I certainly should esteem myself the chiefest of 
them," said Lysias, "if I kept away from my acres, 



AT HOME. 217 

which are full of bread, if the closets of the town-house 
were empty.'* 

*'I don't understand," said the little man. 

" Or rather you won't," retorted Lysias. "Are there 
not ten doctors where one is sufficient for the work, 
twenty clerks where a half-dozen girls could fill the 
places, fifty mill-hands where the capacity is for one- 
quarter the number? Are not the cities growing and 
the country-places depopulating? What is to be the 
result? What may only be the result? You can't see? 
Perhaps you never will ; but I doubt me if your children 
do not come to the sight." 

"■ Well," said the little man, " you may be right, but 
if every man were on his rood of ground life would 
run along on a very dead level." 

''Level indeed," said Lysias: ''there would be no 
pleasant clatter of machinery, no buzz of tradesmen's 
voices, no pictures painted, no books written, no driving 
to and fro of doctors." 

" But in place of " said the little man. 

" In place of that," said Lysias, taking the words out 
of his mouth, "there would be absence of the distress 
that is daily increasing." 

" And in way of remedy " queried the little man. 

"In way of remedy," replied Lysias, "it would be 
well if one boy at least out of every half-dozen that 
are growing up might be thought not too good to plant 
and grow bread enough for his own feeding." 

The little man, pulling out his watch, said it was late; 
his good-night was much more cordial than usual, I 
thought. 

K 19 



AT HOME. 

BEING alone, Lysias reverted to the matter of educa- 
tion. *' You were about to give us your views," 
he said. 

If I remember rightly, I answered, it is determined 
that our little junior is to commence with the English 
tongue ? 

*' That is the idea," responded the father. 

Well, then, said I, the path is a straight one: the 
anatomy of the vehicle to begin with ; philosophy to 
go on with. A boy is to learn first of the tools with 
which he is to work ; as understanding develops he comes 
to comprehend of himself that "the proper study of 
mankind is man." Language is that which alone con- 
cerns our pupil at the beginning. 

" But what about geography," suggested Elvira, *'and 
about arithmetic, and about the natural sciences?" 

I shook my head. Words, writing, derivations, and 
synonyms ; tliat is all for the first three or four years. 

*'But why derivations?" asked the mother. 

Because we are beginning at the middle. He who 
uses words without knowledge of their meaning has no 
advantage of speech over a parrot. The study of words 
218 



AT HOME. 219 

excites, on the part of a boy, interest in the things about 
which words treat. It makes him anxious to learn. 

*'Why synonyms?" 

For the reason that a command of these shows more 
markedly than almost anything else a difference between 
the gentleman and the clown; certainly nothing is so 
indicative of the nature of a man's bringing-up. 

Come here, Lysias, I said, reaching out my hand to 
the boy ; I am to be your school-master for half an hour, 
and, if you will listen attentively to what I have to tell, 
I hope to make you understand the meaning of the 
genius of your mother-tongue, and what it is to study 
it comprehendingly. 

The boy is wonderfully thoughtful for his age : he 
hastened to my side, anticipation showing itself on 
every feature of his countenance. 

You have observed, I said, laying my hand upon his 
arm, that the common manner of intercourse between 
men lies in the use of words ; thus, when one man would 
tell anything to another he utters certain sounds, which 
sounds are understood by him who hears as things pos- 
sessed of definite meaning. We say earth, sea, sun, 
moon, light, darkness. We say the earth is a heavy 
body ; the sea is an unstable element ; light and dark- 
ness are the direct opposites to each other. As we 
need to enlarge upon these things to our neighbors, 
we have occasion for an increased number of sounds. 
These sounds have been invented. We say, for example, 
the earth is a heavy body, spheroidal in shape ; the 
sea is an unstable element, composed in great part of 
two gases in combination ; light and darkness are the 
direct opposites to each other, but are neither of them 



2 20 AT HOME. 

things in themselves, being phenomena associated with 
change in place of the spot whereon an observer stands. 
Thesounds used by English-speaking men are so various 
that there are one hundred thousand of them ; and even 
this large number does not include what are ordinarily- 
known as the scientific terms. 

The boy winced. " I never can remember them all." 

No, nor can anybody else. I have mentioned their 
number with a view of pointing out that a man finds 
himself able to receive information in proportion as he 
is familiar with the sounds required for its conveyance. 
A parrot says, "■ Give Polly bread and sugar." Giving 
these articles to the bird often enough to associate 
the sounds you have taught with the things received 
by it, you have served the utterer of them to an end that 
is the means of affording it many a good feast. A boy 
gets bread and sugar, using the same sounds with which 
to make his request. But a boy requires to know the 
meaning of the things asked for. He needs, then, 
necessarily, to possess knowledge of a greater number 
of words. I will make an example. I want him to un- 
derstand, for instance, that bread is a compound thing, 
having a history. I say to him, — 

Bread is made out of grain. 

But this is not all I wish him to know. Well, to 
understand more he will require a knowledge of more 
words. When he gets these, and not before, I can tell 
him further. 

He learns more words, together with their meaning. 
I am thus enabled to go on with the history. 

The grain out of which bread is made is grown in fields. 

We wait now until more words are learned. 



AT HOME. 221 

Men gather the grain, and ofte called a fniller grinds it 
into flour. 

More words. 

Flour is a powder-like substance, which becomes a 
dough 7vhen kneaded with water. 

More words. 

When there is mixed with this dough a peculiar sub- 
stance called yeast, the 7nass lightens and enlarges itself ; 
the cook 710W takes of it, and, after moulding it into the 
shape of loaves, puts it into the heated oven of a stove, 
from whence, as a result of certain chemical changes 

More words needed. 

Lysias clapped his hands. " I understand," he said. 
'*I will go right to work and learn at least fifty thou- 
sand of the words." 

If you do, I replied, you will most likely become a 
writer who will quickly enough make the best ashamed 
of their attempts. 

''Why?" asked the boy. 

Because, I answered, the best know so few words. 

Lysias looked surprised. " Such must know most of 
them," he said. '* How could they write books if they 
did not?" 

Stepping to a shelf, I put into his hand a copy of 
*' Paradise Lost." How many words, I asked, do you 
think there are in this book ? 

*'Oh, all of them, of course," replied the boy. 

Not over eight thousand, I told him. 

Upon the table was a complete edition of Shakspeare ; 

the volume was a very thick one. The writer of this 

folio, I said, has the reputation of employing more words 

than any other author who has written in the language. 

19* 



222 AT HOME. 

*'How many?" asked the boy. 

Fifteen thousand, a trifle above one-seventh of the 
whole, I replied. 

*'A man," suggested the boy, "is wise according to 
the number of words that he knows?" 

According as he knows the significance of many 
words, I corrected. 

He interrupted to ask "why it was that the fish- 
monger and his father had such different ways of using 
words?" 

It is that part of the subject of which I am about 
to speak, I said. In listening to the two you have been 
struck with the fact that the speech of the fishmonger 
is not at all like that you are in the habit of hearing in 
the library. The reason for this difference is, that your 
father, and his friends, to whom you listen, are men who 
have studied language; the fishmonger knows nothing 
about the rules which pertain to proper speaking; he 
pronounces ill, and gets his sentences mixed up, accord- 
ing as in hearing others talk he has caught the sounds 
of words and has understood or misunderstood the 
application of them. 

I reached a second book from the shelves. Here, I 
said, is a copy of the first prose work written in the lan- 
guage we speak; it is entitled " The Voiage and Tra- 
vaileof Sir John Maundevile,Kt." I will read a few lines 
from one of its pages, and do you look over my shoulder 
and observe the manner in which the words are spelled. 
It is a quaint, dust-covered book, having its binding 
made of board, and being written instead of printed. 
1350 we see upon its title-page. "The Voiage and 
Travaile of Sir John Maundevile Kt. " " For als moche 



AT HOME. 223 

as the Lond beyonde the See, that is to seyne, the 
Holy Lond of Promyssions, or of Beheste, passynge alle 
othere Londes, is the most worthi Lond, most excel- 
lent, and Lady and Soveryen of alle othere Londes, and 
is blessed and halewed of the precyous Body and Blood 
of oure Lord Jesu Crist ; in the whiche Lond it lykede 
him to take Flesche and Blood of the Virgyne Marie, 
to envyrone that holy Lond with his blessede Feet ; 
and there he wolde of his blessednesse enoumbre him 
in the seyd blessed and gloriouse Virgine Marie, and 
become Man, and worche many myracles, and preche 
and teche the Feythe and the Lawe of Cristene Men 
unto his Children : and there it lykede him to suffre 
many Reprevinges and Scornes for us ; and he that 
was Kyng of Hevene, of Eyr, of Erthe, of See, and 
of alle thinges that ben conteyned in hem, wolde alle 
only ben cleped Kyng of that Lond. Whan he seyde, 
Rex sum Judeorum, that is to seyne, I am Kyng of 
Jewes," etc. 

Lysias was very much astonished. I expected him 
to be. ^' The words," he said, " are not spelled at all 
as I spell them, and the sentences are not made as in 
the books I read." 

Nothing at all like either. Do you wish to under- 
stand, I asked, the meaning of the difference ? I knew 
very well that the question was a useless one. He was 
all interest. 

A language, I said, is, in its development, not unlike 
to the human being who uses it; it begins with a baby- 
hood, and comes to its maturity only after long years 
of growth. We will now read, I suggested, a chapter 
from the Bible, as in that book is found the perfection 



224 



AT HOME. 



of composition in the English tongue as it exists to- 
day. 

The chapter read was the fifth of Matthew. 

" The difference is very great," said Lysias. 

We will now go back to our first book, and by com- 
paring with that, and with the one just read from, the 
various writings of the intermediate ages, enable our- 
selves to understand of the development of speech. 

So in turn we read together from Gower and the 
quaint-speaking Chaucer, from the manly Sir Philip, 
from Sir Thomas More, from the author of the "Faerie 
Queene," from Thomas Wyatt, from Roger and after- 
wards from Francis Bacon, from the '' Poly-olbion," 
and finally from Dryden and from Pope. 

**The change is very gradual," the boy suggested : 
'' but why any change at all?" 

Oh, this, I answered him, is on a common principle 
with the change made by man as concerns his loco- 
motive conveniences; first he went on foot, next on 
the back of brutes, after that, needing greater con- 
veniences, the sled was devised, then the wheel, and 
finally, to meet his ever-increasing wants, the locomo- 
tive. Speech now runs on a tramway of grammar. 

"What is grammar?" asked the boy. 

I would make him understand, I said. When, at 
the beginning, man traveled afoot, he needed not so 
much as a path among the trees. Employing beasts, 
a bridle-way had to be cut. Coming to the runner 
and wheel of sled and wagon, a road was found neces- 
sary. A steam-train demands elaborate grading and 
the laying of rails that shall not deviate by so much 
as a line's breadth in a hundred or a thousand miles. 



AT HOME. 225 

''Grammar is a rule for the use of language," sug- 
gested the boy. 

Without it language would be of as little use as a 
locomotive without the rails. 

"Well?" said the lad, inquiringly. 

Well, after my little Lysias has learned the great 
number of words which he assures me he will memor- 
ize, or, indeed, even while he is gathering them into 
his brain, he is to busy himself in laying the tramway. 
This completed, correctly and solidly, he will find 
himself as much advantaged over the unskilled in the 
way of an ability to acquire and use knowledge as is 
a traveler who has the convenience of the railway 
advantaged for purposes of journeying over him who 
makes his way by means of an ox and cart. 

Remember the ending of the lesson, I said, tapping 
him upon the head. A boy familiar with language has 
the knowledge of the world at his command; he has 
gotten to his servitorship a Genie which can and will 
tell him of any and every thing he desires to ask about. 
Whenever or wherever he opens a book, there he will 
find this Genie ready to expose to him the budget and 
contents of the brain of the author who composed it. 
Language is Knowledge. Knowledge is Power. - 

Turning to the parents, I concluded by suggesting 
that the study of derivations might well employ a good 
deal of time, seeing that it was the study of language at 
large. A boy thoroughly versed in his derivations, I 
said, is of necessity a fair classical scholar. 

''A truism indeed," said Lysias, ''the full force of 
which never before struck me." 

Yes, I said, it will bear thinking over. 



AT HOME. 

^^ AFTER the tramway, what?" asked the elder 

l\ Lysias. 

Extend it, I answered. Extend it quickly as com- 
ports with mental growth into Greece, and then, if 
you please, back again home by way of Germany and 
England. 

'*Ah," said my old pupil, smiling, "you would 
have one believe that greatness was born and died with 
the Grecian." 

The faith would not be very greatly misplaced, I 
replied. Men of the pre-christian age, being un- 
trammeled as to their speculations by any very close 
dogma, reached out of themselves after the unknown ; 
the search was a manly one, and, although it looked 
not beyond Olympus, there was nothing, either of 
earth, water, fire, or air, that it did not inquire into. 
Men, by striving, almost scaled the mount. The foun- 
dation was in what the modern calls Positivism. 

" Here Cittium's glory, Zeno the sublime, 
Now lies ; who, that he might Olympus climb, 
Ne'er Pelion upon Ossa strove to raise ; 
No famed Herculean deeds advanc'd his praise; 
For by his virtue he found a pathless way 
To starry mansions and the seat of Day." 
226 



AT HOME. 227 

" Copper decays with time, but thy renown, 
Diogenes, no age shall e'er take down ; 
For thou alone hast taught us not to need, 
By thinking that we don't ; and hast us freed 
From cares, and show'd the easy way to life." 

"But neither the * talker with the dead' nor the 
* son of Tresias' was able to scale the mount, or get us 
into Elysium," said Lysias. With age my pupil has 
grown self-confident, and somewhat over-critical as to 
his manner of speech. 

No, I said ; but that was because of precisely the 
same reason that prevents so many of the moderns 
from scaling and getting into it. Neither the one nor 
the other has been able to work clear of the fallacy in- 
flicted by Thales and his school. A thing cannot be 
known by a thing unlike itself; Brain cannot know 
Soul. The difference between Christ and Plato was 
the difference between Soul and Brain.* To read 
from Thales on through Anaxagoras and Aristotle is to 
be led to understand the foundation both of physics 
and metaphysics ; is to be rendered able to anticipate 
the conclusions of the Bacons, the Comptes, and the 
Berkeleys ; is to be made to know a very good deal 
about all the things of to-day, — things called new, but 
which are, most of them, older than the Stagirjte. Not 
only this, but it is to be made to believe in to-day ; it 
is to be made to hold faith in the relationship of God 
and men. Ah ! there were demi-gods in the olden 
time; our lessons have come from them. Who may 
study the ** Crito" without finding himself inclined 

* See " Two Thousand Years After," 



2 28 AT HOME, 

through its manly teachings to the practice of that 
v/hich is honorable? Or who may speculate with 
*' Phaedo" without coming to a consciousness of his 
immortality? It would not seem possible that a man 
of hasty utterance be brought to see of the fallacies of 
*'Gorgias" without at the same time perceiving the 
unwisdom of hasty speaking. It cannot be otherwise 
than that he who learns of the confusions of ''Protag- 
oras" learns at the sanie time of the poverty of a 
judgment which comes from studying a round thing 
by looking alone on one of its sides. 

Yes, in Greece, surely, was the garden of the Hes- 
perides ; is it not a garden filled with the best that pro- 
duces fruit the taste of which becomes sweeter with 
the chewing, flowers whose scents grow richer with 
age, walks, the shade and calm of whose meanderings 
invite the more as winter draws on apace? 

It is, that in Plato man finds the meaning of justice ; 
— and justice is virtue ', and virtue is happiness. To 
be happy is to have attained to fulness. But who, 
nowadays, seek after this fulness, using the lantern of 
Diogenes ? The good bishop is right : ''the scholars of 
modern times, perceiving how unpropitious the study 
of poetry and other elegant and sublime sciences gen- 
erally proves to the acquisition of wealth, sordidly 
apply their minds to the more gainful employments 
of law, physic, and divinity. The prospect of lucre is 
the only stimulus to learning; and he is the deepest 
arithmetician who can count the greatest number of 
fees ; the truest geometrician who can measure out the 
largest fortune ; the most perfect astrologer who can 
best turn the rise and fall of other stars to his own ad- 



AT HOME. 



229 



vantage; the ablest optician who can reflect upon him- 
self the beneficial beams of great men's favors ; the 
most ingenious mechanic who can raise himself to the 
highest point of preferment ; and the soundest theolo- 
gian who can preach himself into an excellent living; 
leaving the higher regions of the sciences almost un- 
peopled, and only acquiring such a superficial knowl- 
edge of them as may be sufficient for light toying and 
table conversation, or enable them, by means of a 
voluble tongue, a strong voice, a pleasing eye, a steady 
countenance, and some trivial gleanings from the rich 
harvests of other men, to make a fair show, and im- 
pose themselves on the world as truly learned and ripe 
scholars." 

To be just, is to be free from ''covetousness, mean- 
ness, pretentiousness, and cowardice." And who shall 
find himself free from such vices save the man who 
has a soul ''full of lofty thoughts" and who is privi- 
leged "to contemplate all time, and all existence" ? 

''With regard to the philosophic nature, let us take 
it for granted that its possessors are ever enamored of 
all learning that will reveal to them somewhat of real 
and permanent existence, which is exempt from the 
vicissitudes of generation and decay." 

Again, "let us assume that they are enamored of 
the whole of that real existence, and willingly resign 
no part of it, be it small or great, honored or slighted.'* 

Once more: "We must take care not to overlook 
any taint of meanness. For surely little-mindedness 
thwarts above everything the soul that is ever to aspire 
to grasp truth, both divine and human, in its integrity 
and universality." 

20 



230 AT HOME. 

Here, my Lysias, are texts which define Plato. "Do 
you think," asks the Philosopher, **that there is a 
State as now constituted which might receive a true 
philosopher as its ruler and governor?" No less does 
the truth hold to-day than in the time of the Academy. 
He who is most wise is esteemed least available. A 
scavenger with his garbage is counted by his fellows as 
richer than the Savant with his deductions. 

A State to be wisely and well governed may only 
become so by having at its head such as through study 
and a contemplation of life have attained to the com- 
prehension of the meaning of good ; for it may only 
be that such as have thus grown wise have been ren- 
dered conscious that individual good is not a thing in 
itself, but a something that is to be found alone in 
the common good ; hence even though it be impossi- 
ble to obliterate from the nature of men the selfish- 
ness that characterizes it, yet the rights of the ruled 
necessarily find consideration and provision, as thus 
it is understood rulers themselves find their own best 
good. 

But — that philosophers be lifted to the ruler's 
bench implies that the governed be lifted also. It 
must be a double lift ; yet a lift down is it to him who 
shall be brought to a rulership ; for by the sage who 
has made himself acquainted with the principles of 
government, it is perceived that justice being under- 
stood, life and living have in them their own direc- 
tion ; that the need for rulers lies alone in that which 
a very little knowledge would convert into its own 
remedy. A virtuous State, like a virtuous man, goes 
right without external direction. 



AT HOME. 231 

Happy would it be for the unlearned that the learned 
be brought — ay, compelled, if against their will — to 
govern and to direct them ; for after what strives the 
''genuine lover of knowledge but after truth"? and 
will not such '' be found temperate and thoroughly 
uncovetous, the last persons in the world to value 
those objects which make men anxious for money at 
any cost" ? Could it be possible that the same nature 
should be found loving both truth and falsehood ? 
And are philosophers found aught else than lovers 
of wisdom, — lovers of truth ? 

But it is natural that the true philosopher hold him- 
self aloof from the commerce of men. Having '' tasted 
how sweet and blessed a treasure" is truth, and seeing 
*' the madness of the many, with the full assurance 
that there is scarcely a person who takes a single judi- 
cious step in his public life, and that there is no ally 
with whom he may safely march to the succor of the 
just ; nay, that should he attempt it he will be like a 
man who has fallen among wild beasts, — unwilling to 
join in their iniquities, and unable singly to resist the 
fury of all, and therefore destined to perish before he 
can be of any service to his country or his friends 
or do good to himself or any one else ; — having 
weighed all this, such a man keeps quiet and confines 
himself to his own concerns, like one who takes shelter 
behind a wall on a rainy day, when the wind is driving 
before it a hurricane of dust and rain ; and when from 
his retreat he sees the infection of lawlessness spread- 
ing over the rest of mankind, he is well content, if he 
can in any way live his life here untainted in his own 
person by unrighteousness and unholy deeds, and, when 



232 ^^ NOME. 

the time for his release arrives, takes his departure 
amid bright hopes with cheerfuhiess and serenity." 

He who is not a lover of wisdom is a blind man. 
If then he who leads be blind and he who is led be 
without sight, what shall be expected to befall both, 
save disaster? Who then is he that is not blind ? He 
alone surely has sight who is able to apprehend ^'the 
eternal and immutable/' while those ^^ who wander in 
the region of change and multiformity" are without 
vision, and, if placed in the advance, prove blind leaders 
of the blind. 

'* Can there then be question as to whether a blind 
man, or one quick with sight, is the right person to 
guard and keep anything?" 

But it is affirmed that the philosopher, as he quickens 
in sight, grows careless in the use of his feet, and thus not 
less than the blind man is found apt to stumble and lose 
his way. Who that talks not to a reflection on Plato 
when is repeated the story of the failure at Syracuse ? 
and who is he that prates not mistakingly when he fails 
to distinguish between Plato and Dionysius and the 
Syracusans? Is it that a man finding no wall back of 
which he may shelter himself shall continue to face the 
storms which he finds it not in himself, or in his asso- 
ciations, to still? Education alone it is which, in 
politics, is found the sufficient shield for the protection 
of him who would express himself justly and without 
show of favor : who is he that may continue to de- 
nounce a tyrant as tyrant, when so slight a defence as 
the twenty minse of an Anniceris stands between the 
denouncer and years of slavery in ^gina? 

Is not he who is without a knowledge of things as 



AT IK ME. 



233 



they really are, like to one who is blind? for is it not 
that such possess in their souls " no distinct exemplar, 
and cannot, like painters, fix their eyes on perfect truth 
as a perpetual standard of reference, to be contemplated 
with the minutest care, before they proceed to deal with 
earthly canons about things beautiful and just and 
good, laying them down when they are required, and 
where they already exist watching over their preserva- 
tion ?" 

He is, in truth, a painter, who understands not alone 
the law of combinations residing in his pigments, but 
as well the nature of the canvas he colors, and about 
the brushes with which his shades are drawn. So is 
it in like manner that the true philosopher is he who 
knows as well the law of co-ordination which governs 
not less walking than judging. 

A philosopher is truthful because that truth is the 
beloved object of his existence. Not only in probability 
is such a one found continuously and consistently on 
the side of truth, but absolutely inevitable is it that he 
be so found ; for as by his nature the philosopher is a 
lover of truth, so shall his passion allow him alone to be 
pleased with things *' bound by the closest ties to that 
which is the object of his adoration." He who is a 
philosopher is above sickness and above death; neither 
can misfortune thrust him down or destroy him. 



" Know'st thou not, Passenger, already? — No. — 
Then Sickness here has hid famed Polemo. — 
For my part I beheve ye, sir, — for why? 
Diseases never spare Philosophy. — 
'Tis true. But this I'll tell ye for your comfort, 
Though his dry bones be here, his soul is run for't. 



234 



AT HOME. 

And whither, think'st thou ? To the starry spheres. 
Let Death and Sickness now go shake their ears." 



Being truthful above other men, and wise beyond all, 
how is it, as not unjustly asserted by some Adeimantus, 
that philosophers command not that respect in their 
own cities which elects to position of favor and influ- 
ence ? 

Is he a philosopher, otherwise than by profession, 
who is found an unfailing attendant at every " Dio- 
nysian festival"? who lets out his ears, as if on hire, 
to listen to all the choruses of the season ? 

''And whom," asks a Glaucon, ''do you call gen- 
uine philosophers?" 

It is not to be denied that a throne may be occu- 
pied by one not born to the crown ; but he who is of 
legitimate succession possesses attributes of birthright 
peculiar to himself. In like manner, he who is born 
to the estate of philosophy has attributes not found in 
a pretender. 

"Doubtless you have seen," answers Socrates to 
Glaucon, "how persons who love honor will command 
a company if they cannot lead an army, and, in default 
of being honored by great and important personages, 
are glad to receive the respect of the little and insig- 
nificant, so covetous are they of honor in any shape?" 

" Precisely so." 

" Then answer me yes or no to this: when we de- 
scribe a man as having a longing for something, are 
we to assert that he longs after the whole class that the 
term includes, or only after one part to the exclusion 
of another?" 

" He longs after the whole." 



AT HOME. 



235 



"Then shall we not maintain that the philosopher, 
as the lover of wisdom, is one who longs for wisdom, 
not partially, but wholly?" 

''True." 

**So that if a person makes difficulties about his 
studies, especially while he is young and unable to dis- 
criminate between what is profitable and what is not, 
we shall pronounce him to be no lover of wisdom ; 
just as when a man is nice about his eating, we deny 
that he is hungry or desirous of food, and instead of 
describing him as fond of eating, we call him a bad 
feeder." 

'* Yes, and we shall be right in doing so." 

** On the other hand, when a man is ready and will- 
ing to taste every kind of knowledge, and addresses 
himself joyfully to his studies with an appetite which can 
never be satiated, we shall justly call such a person a 
philosopher." 

It is that philosophers seldom arrive at seats of 
political honor and distinction because that they who 
elect lack wisdom which is the direction to good. 
What is to open the eyes of him who may look not 
farther than a supposed personal gain to be arrived at 
in the triumph of a party or a cause? or who is he that, 
having alone myopic vision, shall understand and be- 
hold the circle of a greater and truer good existing 
without that little one which alone he sees? And 
who, save the learned, but that are myopic ? 

It is not in the philosopher's creed that he who finds 
himself at rest is to aspire to unrest, or that he who 
dwells in peace is to seek war; *'for it is not in the 
nature of things that a pilot should petition the sailors 



236 AT HOME. 

to submit to his authority, or that the wise should wait 
at the rich man's door." 

Who, being of the Prytanes, but shall bring about 
him the clamors of an ill-judging multitude when he 
allows to wander for a hundred years on the banks of 
the Styx the dead warriors of Arginusae ? Yet who, be- 
ing Epistates, and withal a Socrates, but that shall deny 
the senseless mob, knowing better than sackclothed 
ignorance the burying power of the taxiarchs? 

Shall philosophers take office with other object than 
that of being ministers to the public good? Who so 
well as these know the nothingness of that phantom of 
reputation to which silly men aspire ? What is called 
good by the selfish is not likely to be the ''essential 
good," but merely the shadow of it. And if it be that 
the ignorant man pursues a shadow, deeming it a real- 
ity, shall he not in his silliness mock at him who as- 
serts that what he looks at is best to be seen by turning 
the face in an opposite direction ? Therefore it is that 
the "essential Form," which, when apprehended, is 
found to be the essence of the shadow, "the source of 
all that is bright and beautiful in the visible world, 
giving birth to light and its master, and in the intel- 
lectual world dispensing, immediately and with full 
authority, truth and reason, and that whoever would 
act wisely, either in private or public life, must set 
this Form of Good before his eyes." It is that this 
form of good being seen by the philosopher to be a 
common good — the good of the sun, the good of the 
air, the good of the water, the summum bonum, God — • 
it is impossible that he should not but understand those 
distorted shadows which so mislead ordinary men and 



AT HOME. 



237 



which lose to the selfish the true form as they so 
avariciously follow after, and grasp at, the reflection ! 

Yet may the true good not be secured by 

men save through that which is understood as sacrifice. 
Diogenes goes into the Theatre when all others are 
coming out, and this he has been doing all his life, for 
is there not a profounder lesson in the silence than in 
the pantomime? but who may catch the lesson of a 
darkened playhouse save him who is a philosopher ? 

What shall be the ruling of Salinator? and whereof 
but of evil shall be the laws of Albinus? Do not these, 
having come to the season of old age, present alone 
but fruitless branches? Yet were not these the Con- 
suls who in their actions commended luxury as the end 
of living and of being? 

But Cato is a philosopher, for now that he too 

has come to hoary locks, does he not declare that such 
are the pleasures of the estate that though like ^son 
he might be restored to youth by Medea's enchanted 
cauldron, yet would he much the rather remain in his 
relations just where he is and what he is? 

Youth restrained is Youth fettered ; Youth fettered 
is Old age unbound. Who so virtuous as Cyrus? Who 
so eternal in his freshness as the Kaianian prince? — 
And is that course the wiser which brings the age of 
Salinator to desolation, or which, on the other side, 
converts the death-day of Cyrus into what is hailed as 
a birthday, inasmuch as in the life lived by the latter 
the persuasion comes of itself that the soul properly 
enjoys only when it is free from that which, in his ig- 
norance, Salinator knows of alone as all that consti- 
tutes life ? It is then that the law of Cyrus must differ 



238 AT HOME. 

from that of Salinator; the life of Cato will not be the 
living of his brother Consul. Which shall the youths 
Scipio and Lselius choose? And in what law will a 
man who has attained to wisdom elect to live? 

What shall that law profit which affords all license 
yet secures not to a man ** things good" ? What is it 
to know ** everything else perfectly, yet to be ignorant 
of the essential Form"? It profits a man nothing; 
just as it is found equally profitless to possess every- 
thing save **what is good." Is not then the stupid to 
be led by the wise man, and his face to be turned by 
him to that good which, in pursuing the shadow, he 
departs from ? Shall Youth, ignorant of the ''essential 
Form," be suffered to abide in paths which lead to a 
quick and to a cheerless old age? 

What say the golden verses of Pythagoras ? 

" Nightly forbear to close thine eyes to rest, 
Ere thou hast question'd well thy conscious breast, 
What sacred duty thou hast left undone. 
What act committed which thou ought'st to shun. 
And as fair truth, or error, marks the deed, 
Let sweet applause, or sharp reproach, succeed. 
So shall thy steps, while this great rule is thine, 
Undevious tread in virtue's path divine." 

Elvira interrupts, to ask if this excursion with Plato 
is designed to be of relation with the subject of educa- 
tion, on which we were discoursing. 

Truly, for it is the pith of it. He who would in- 
doctrinate a son into grand living must first indoctrinate 
him into philosophy ; and to what better master shall he 
direct him than to the Sage whose volumes hold the 
inspirations of Socrates ? 

*'But," said Lysias, looking towards his ancients, 



y/y HOME. 239 

** my bookseller tells me that Plato lies covered with 
dust on the top shelf of his store, and that Aristotle is 
laid away in the garret." 

Not a doubt but what he told you truly. The man 
of to-day has come to prefer the ragged semblance of 
money to pure gold, nickel takes the place of silver. 

To be a philosopher is to be above the cares and 
anxieties which environ ordinary men ; is to be above 
deceit, above envy, above the vain pursuits in which 
little men fritter away their little lives ; is to be able to 
understand of the continuousness of beginning, and of 
the unending of end. Lysias is to study philosophy, 
for thus shall he have start where men of common cul- 
ture end ; thus, like a ship of mighty strength, will he 
sail in equal safety over rude waves or upon glassy waters. 

" The sea being smooth, 

How many shallow bauble boats dare sail 

Upon her patient breast, making their way 

With those of nobler bulk ! 

But let the ruflfian Boreas once enrage 

The gentle Thetis, and anon, behold, 

The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cuts, 

Bounding between the two moist elements, 

Like Perseus' horse ! Where's then the saucy boat. 

Whose weak, untimber'd sides but even now 

Co-rivall'd greatness?" 

The elder Lysias, with some expression of perplexity 
showing on his countenance, refers to the lines put into 
the mouth of Xenophanes by Timon, — 

" Oh that mine were the deep mind, prudent and looking to both sides ! 
Long, alas ! have I strayed on the road of error, beguiled, 
And am now hoary of years, yet exposed to doubt and distraction 
Manifold, all-perplexing, for whithersoever I turn me 
I am lost." 



240 A 7' HOME. 

Elvira looks inquiringly. 

Even so it is, I said ; and confusion is found in Plato, 
and doubt in Aristotle, and fallacies many in Epictetus: 
but after all these comes one who is the key. 

Christ ? asks the mother. 

Christ, I answered ; but who and what is Christ to 
the man who knows not of a world without Christ ? 
A Savior, truly, and he can save man ; but the philoso- 
pher saves himself through Christ, for in this man he 
recognizes the fullest wisdom of the world; ay, recog- 
nizes in him demonstration, — the great riddle solved, 
— philosophy at fruition, — the study completed. Our 
Lysias shall be made in brain as well as soul that truest 
of true things — a Christian. 

** But men are Christians without being philosophers." 

Empty vessels ; vessels without ballast ; blown over 
by every wind of doctrine because of the absence of 
that which holds up. Nothing different from a parrot 
in Christianity is an unlearned man ; he cries Christ, 
Christ, and cries it glibly enough, but what can he 
know — except apprehensively — of the God which spake 
from the mouth of a carpenter's son ? What can he 
know of that which leaves no question to be asked? 
for of the questions which confounded and baffled 
human observation he knows nothing. 

"And what after philosophy has been attained to?'* 
asks the mother. 

Nothing, as parents direct. The rest will be done 
by the God that has been correlated into our boy. With 
language and philosophy indoctrination becomes com- 
pleted ; the truer teacher will be found come into the 
seat of the master. 



DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 

ANOTHER change; one most unexpected. 
A draping of black crape hangs from the bell- 
pull. Death is in the house. 

In a chamber which over-officious hands have made 
dark and ghostly-looking through the closing of shut- 
ters and drawing of curtains, — the same room which 
was furnished so warmly and lighted so brilliantly for 
the welcome of her who now lies dead in it, — Lysias 
sits, his arm resting against the edge of a coffin, his 
tears dropping one by one over a white clayey face. I 
put my arm over his shoulder, but with a gentle motion 
he pushes it away. *'It is the last," he says; "pray 
let me alone ; to-morrow the greatest of the acts of life 
will have ended, the curtain will fall on a funeral." 

I offered words of sympathy. 

"Never mind them," he said. "I have thought 
of everything, and am not unprepared. What I endure 
to-day you will suffer to-morrow; it is a cup of which 
all must drink. There is nothing with which to find 

fault." But the tears ceased not to fall on the dead 

face. 

Come, I said, being unwilling to leave him, let us 
L 21 241 



242 DEATH IN THE HOUSE, 

look at change as we have studied and understand it. 
For what are the tears? For her who lies, or for him 
who sits ? 

I shall never cease to remember the manner in which 
he looked at me. 

" You have not lost." That was all he said. 

At this moment the younger Lysias entered the 
room. How will he take it? I asked myself. What 
does untaught youth think of death ? 

The boy, without a word spoken, threw his arms 
around the neck of the father. After a long crying- 
spell he raised his head from the place where it had 
been resting, and said, inquiringly, " Mother has gone 
to heaven ?" 

The elder looked directly into my eyes. 

Yes, gone to heaven, I said. Your mother was a 
very good and happy woman, Lysias. 

"The happiest and the best," the boy answered, his 
voice half choked by his sobs. 

And her happiness, I said, grew out of her virtues. 
What does your Bible tell you about good people ? 

"That they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven," 
he quickly replied. 

You believe the Bible ? 

" Does any one doubt it?" he asked. 

No sensible person living in a Christian land, that I 
ever heard of, I answered. 

"I will not cry any more," the boy said. "It 
would be very selfish to cry after one who has been 
taken by God to live with him." 

It would show, I said, that the one who cries does 
not believe his Bible. 



DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 



243 



**Why then is father crying?" asked the boy. 

The answer made by the elder was a sigh as if 

the heart had been rent ; he laid his cheek against the 
dead face, while his hand toyed convulsively with the 
cold one that lay in the coffin. *' Oh, take him away," 
he cried, "take him away. I have left to me neither 
religion nor philosophy. Nor do I want either ; give 
me back my dead. I want this, nothing else." 

I told the boy to go out and to see if he could not 
discover a face that looked like that of his mother's 
among the beautiful sun-tinted clouds. 

'* Is she there?" he asked, his innocent countenance 
brightening with anticipation. 

*' As surely as God is," I replied. 

I left the father to an indulgence of his grief, while 
through a window, the shutters of which I had thrown 
open, I watched the golden curls of the son as they fell 
over the shoulders from a head turned upwards to look 
after God and a mother. 

Come, I said, turning back to Lysias, do we not 
know that there is no such thing as death ? Have we 
not long ago gone over all this ? Is what we here see 
anything else than the exchange of one thing for 
another? 

Lysias raised the cold head fron its pillow in the 
coffin and clasped his arms about the neck. **WilI 
you not let me be?" he cried; *' for God's sake will 
you not let me be ?" Dropping his hold suddenly, he 
clutched me by the arm and, with a strength I did not 
think belonged to him, literally pushed me out of the 
chamber, the door of which he locked. 

I sat down on an outside stoop and looked after the 



244 



DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 



boy, whose eyes were still scanning the heavens. Will 
it not hold ? I asked myself. Is grief stronger than the 
senses? or even than faith? 

All that day and all that night Lysias sat by the side 
of his dead ; it was only when the hour for the funeral 
arrived that he could be prevailed on to leave his 

place. They were passionate kisses that he bestowed 

on the lifeless lips; hot tears that he rained over the 
expressionless face. We could induce him to leave the 
coffin only after the lid had been screwed down, 
affording him thus the assurance that his own eyes 
should be the last to cast rays of love within it. 

. . . I did not see my friend for a whole month. 
No persuasion, no entreaty, could draw him from the 
room to which he had retired immediately upon his 
return from the funeral. 

But when again we met, the old faith and the 

old confidence had come back. 

You understand it ? I said. 

"I have trust," he answered. 

And you are not dismayed, I asked, at the idea of a 
separation that is eternal ? 

*' What God does must be well," he said. 

But what, I asked, if all these teachings about cor- 
relation and transmigration be error? What if there 
be a resurrection of the real form and personality, 
and that, dying, we meet again ? 

The idea suggested was too much for the philosophy 
of Lysias ; the memory of the loved one was too fresh ; 
he threw himself into my arms weeping like a child. 
"Ah!" he cried, "what doctrine is like that? No 
wonder it overthrew all that went before; that it gains 



DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 245 

ground daily with the people. Did I only believe 
it," he said, ''I could sit down patiently and wait, sit 
down patiently and wait." 

But you do not believe it? 

'*I do not comprehend how it can be, and yet cor- 
respond with what we know of nature's laws." 

But it is apprehensible, I said. 

The time had come for more walks and talks. This 
was the first of many since the departure of Elvira. I 
put his arm within my own. 

"To her grave," he said. And to her grave we 

went. 

I was glad that we found the mound covered with 
the freshness that lives in young grass. Already, I 
said, already has the resurrection commenced. Lysias, 
with his face in reverential mood to the earth, had 
caught the perfume of a mignonette which some kind 
hand had brought there ; the plant had fixed its 
rootlets firmly in the soil and was getting from it a 
lusty life. It is her breath, I said. Lysias understood. 
He pulled the flower from its stock and thrust it into 
his bosom. We sat down upon a neighboring stone. 
Already, I repeated, already life is abroad on its circle 
of duties and of pleasures. Already is matter reuniting 
with matter, force with force; already is the divine 
soul entering into new combinations for the furthering 
of the meaning of God. 

"It is cold," Lysias said, — "cold, cold." 

Yes, I replied, cold enough to the selfishness of in- 
dividuality. But what is it to that which is above 
individuality? 

"To what?" he asked. 

21* 



246 DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 

To that something which so unites a good man with 
the Infinite that he looks upon the passions of life as 
upon dreams, and is as little disturbed when awakened 
out of the one as out of the other. 

Lysias turned suddenly towards me ; his eyes glared. 
*' I believe," he said, ** that in your veins flows a river 
of ice-cold blood." He was greatly excited; some 
sudden thought, perhaps. 

I answered not a word. 

*'Not disturbed when awakened out of them!" he 
exclaimed. ** Such a state is impossible ; no man can 
arrive at it, nor need he wish to ; the tie which holds 
me to this grave is worth to me more than the empires 
of the world could be." 

My heart sympathized with him in the misery which 
was so overwhelming. But, I said, that which you have 
learned of God and his ways goes for nothing with you. 

'' Why?" he asked. 

Because you are looking in a grave for something 
which is as much out of it as yourself. You are like 
the school-boy who tears into a cocoon expecting to 
find therein a butterfly, which at the very moment may 
be sunning its wings on the branch above his head. I 
thought, I said, that this had been fully understood 
by us. 

The eyes of Lysias were full of tears. ** The brain is 
not the heart," he replied. 

I was going on to speak of change, when he raised 
his hand entreatingly. ** Not now; to-morrow. Wait 
till to-morrow. Ah!" he continued, '* I could not 
have believed philosophy to be so cheerless a comforter. 
I get nothing that will satisfy. I can only feel that I 



DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 



247 



have lost the dearest of my possessions ; the conscious- 
ness of this loss is always before me. ' ' He threw himself 
upon the grave. '* My dear Chrysalis ! she is smothering 
here," he said. 

Lifting him up, I led him out of the cemetery, and 
together we wended our way to the top of a neighboring 
hill from which we had often watched the going down 
of the sun ; it was just evening, and the orb was slowly 
sinking in the distant sea. 

"It is a picture of human pleasures," he said. "My 
Sun is already under the water." 

But what about the morrow? I asked. 

"I know no to-morrow," he answered. 

But what about when the sun comes back ? 

" It can put no light in my eyes," he said. 

Listen, Lysias, I replied ; you talk and act as if nature, 
in the absence of the God, had made some great mistake. 
I am made not less ashamed of your knowledge than of 
your faith. Your individuality is being allowed such 
prominence that you are quite in danger of forgetting 
that man of himself is nothing. Would it not be more 
becoming, I suggested, that you consider how favored 
you have been in the possession for so long a time of the 
sweet thing you called wife, rather than give way to an 
inconsolable repining because the gift, being needed for 
other use, has been taken from you ? 

Lysias moaned uneasily and turned towards the 
cemetery. "Poor thing!" he said; "she lies there 
smothered in the ground." 

Smothered ! I said : how smothered ? how can that 
smother which has no use for breath ? 

"But do you not know," he replied, " that a grave 



248 DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 

is a deep and a dark hole ?' ' I think his mind wandered 
for the moment in which he spoke. 

Come, I said, what do you think of an unborn child 
shut tight up in its caul ? What of the appetite of a chrys- 
alis for the leaf upon which it feasted while a caterpillar? 
What do you think of a fish living in comfort only when 
the water is between it and the atmosphere ? 

"True, true," he replied; *'I am quite forgetful of 
the law of fitness." 

So forgetful of it, I said, that you would feed a chrys- 
alis on mulberry leaves. 

" Poor Elvira! poor Elvira !" he muttered. *' I can 
find her nowhere, even although I am looking every- 
where. ' ' 

It is for yourself you are grieving, I said, not for 
Elvira. To grieve for a thing gone is like mourning 
the fate of sap that finds itself converted into fruit, or 
of the tgg which has come to be an air-flying bird, or 
of a bowed-down humanity that finds itself back into 
the God whence it came. Ignorant Lysias, the cater- 
pillar exists, but it is a butterfly. Answer me still 
again : is a butterfly seen to go back to its old com- 
panions, the worms? 

You have no answer. Well, perhaps your prescience 
can tell me of something else. Does the exquisite silver- 
winged flyer miss its old concomitant, the slime-footed 
crawler ? 

You do not know. 

Well, you can at least answer me this. When worms 
and butterflies are separated, which is to do the grieving? 

"Neither, I would say," he answered; "for it is 
never seen that the butterfly as it comes out of one end 



DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 



249 



of the cocoon goes round to the other to look after its 
old self, the caterpillar." 

No; there is a new life, I replied. But I have still 
another question. Is not a butterfly found to form new 
affinities quickly enough ? 

*' Quickly enough." 

And what about the old worm life ? does this go on 
as usual ? 

*' It is undeniably a circle," he replied. 

And worm and butterfly, I suggested, each in its way, 
has a life full in its day ? 

''Full," he admitted. 

And each, in its way, possesses individuality, which 
individuality seems to be — while it lasts — the full and 
entire meaning of the life of the thing that possesses it? 

'' It is not to be denied," he replied. 

Does a man, I asked, pity a butterfly because that it 
is an insect ? or an eagle for the reason that it is a bird ? 
Does he pity that thing which he calls an angel, seeing 
that an angel is neither man nor woman ?* 

■•■ In dwelling on the subject of these last few pages the author found 
it take such hold of him that he stopped just here and wrote the 
volume entitled " Two Thousand Years After, or a Talk in a Ceme- 
tery," — a work lately published, treating of the meaning of man's im- 
mortality. In that book, he cannot but think, will be found developed 
the whole and true significance of a man's life. He certainly has yet 
met with no critic who has seemed to him able to weaken any of 
its arguments. His own whole present and future have long been 
anchored to that which is its meaning. Whether some storm shall 
eventually come that may drag this anchor he may not say ; as- 
suredly, nothing has as yet come. The teachings of the work corre- 
spond, he believes, word by wore}, with Revelation, yet do not attempt 
to dispute a single position assumed by Scientists. He cannot but 
think that whoever reads the book studiously will find himself con- 



250 



DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 



vinced that there cannot possibly be any conflict between Science and 
Biblical Theology, or between Common Sense and Religion. 

The author would add a line to his note. In a review of this book 
which appeared in a prominent and influential Boston journal, occur the 
following words : " The views set forth by this volume will not find favor 
with Christians : they have none of the inducements to virtuous living — 
future rewards and punishments — which are supplied by a belief in the 
teachings of the Bible. This, of course, does not prove their inherent un- 
soundness." The writer disagrees with the critic. If anything that he 
has offered in the way of argument is found in conflict with the teachings 
of the Bible, he accepts that such arguments are invalidated and proved 
good for nothing. The book was written for, and designed to be read 
by, that constantly enlarging class of people who need to have their 
brains satisfied as well as their hearts. It is purely positivistic, and 
supplemental — from the scientific stand-point — of the account given by 
Moses of the creation and destiny of man. As regards the matters of 
future rewards and punishments, the ignoring of whicTi is objected to 
by the reviewer, the author accepts, with Spinoza, that little regard 
is to be had for the religion of him whose service of his God is founded 
alone on such tenure. If men are incapable of being raised to any 
higher estimate of life and its meaning than this, then it would seem 
better to classify them at once with brutes and depend on the lash as 
the strength of a Government. The writer appends this note — recog- 
nizing its questionable taste — because he is unwilling to remain mis- 
understood in the sentiments of a volume which holds either the 
strength or weakness of the deductions drawn from the studies of his 
lifetime. If he could have any doubt of the inspirational character of 
the writings of the Scriptures, he certainly could have none of their 
superiority as a philosophical system ; the best that has ever been de- 
vised for the guidance of men's lives. 



WORKS OF DR. GARRETSON, 



ODD HOURS OF A PHYSICIAN. 

16mo. Fine Cloth. Price, $1.50. 



"The style of this book is, at times, brilliant to eloquence," — New 
York Evening Mail. 

"The frank, genial egotism of this volume, with its occasional 
dashes of miscellaneous lore, recalls a certain flavor of Montaigne, 
while its shrewd worldly wisdom and homely common sense suggest 
a spice of Franklin and Cobbett." — New York Tribune. 

" Wit, learning, cleverness, and, above all, common sense, show 
themselves on every page of this delightful book. The author com- 
bines in his cheerful speculations some of the rare qualities of Lamb, 
of Professor Wilson, of Dr. Holmes, of Thoreau, and of a dozen 
others of the sound and cheering humorists and philosophers of this 
country and Europe.. There has been no better and more healthful 
volume published for many a day.'' — Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. 



THINKERS AND THINKING. 

IGmo. Fine Cloth. Price, $1.50. 

" Certainly a remarkable book. The style is terse, condensed, 
powerful ; the logic clear, the arguments persuasive." — Boston Medical 
and Surgical yournal. 

"A book well calculated to quicken seed that lie dormant in every 
brain." — Philadelphia Medical Times. 

" The book constitutes an admirable introduction to the study of 
religion and philosophy." — The North American and United States 
Gazette. 

"A book of real research, with notes of men and books, thinking 
men, that every intelligent person will read with great interest." — Ne7v 
York Observer. 

"The shortest and best criticism upon 'Thinkers and Thinking' 
would be this: that it is philosophy in a nut-shell, not merely meta- 
physics nor wordy speculations, not mere guesses at truth, but telling 
the reader about eminent thinkers of the past and present time, and 
checking off their theories by the author's full and keen practical 
and physical as well as mental knowledge. His own philosophy is 
eminently Baconian." — Philadelphia Press. 



TWO THOUSAND YEARS AFTER; 

OR, 

A TALK IN A CEMETERY. 

16mo. Fine Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

" A book that contains more for its size than almost any we have 
ever met with." — Friends yotirnnl. 

" The lapse from Plato's ' Phasdo' to the pages of this book is not 
at all abrupt. It will furnish delightful entertainment to the mind 
which speculates as to the origin and the destiny of man. The 
author's treatment of the reasoning powers, of education, genius, etc , 
is masterly. A more simple and qdifying statement than this book 
offers of questions that have been reserved for professional philoso- 
phers, it would not be easy to imagine ; it brings down the abstrusest 
problems of life to the level of the ordinary mind, and makes the way 
plain whereby every one may investigate for himself the questions that 
have heretofore been deemed too difficult for consideration by any but 
the highest intelligences." — Boston Literary World. 

HOURS WITH JOHN DARBY. 

16mo. Fine Cloth. 



SCIENTIFIC. 



A SYSTEM OF ORAL SURGERY. 

Being a Text-Book on the Diseases and Surgery of the Mouth, 
Jaws, and Face. 

8vo. HOC pages. Three hundred and seventy Illustrations. 
Price, cloth, ^lo.oo; sheep, ^ii.oo. 

'■V* For sale bv Booksellers generally, or will be sent by mail, post- 
paid. On receipt of the price. 

J. B. LIPPmCOTT & CO., Publisher?, 

715 and 717 Market Street, Philadelphia. 



